Builds 1973 Mercedes R107 build (1 Viewer)

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Didnt do the floors like I should. Just didn't feel like grinding rust. Wasn't up for messing with seats anymore either. I got to investigating the windows. That led to taking a lot of trim off and I got to dying pieces. Windows weren't especially good news. It appears the switches and motors are bad.

Scrubbed the parts with brake clean, then SEM cleaner, then SEM prep. Then the black. I've had good luck with SEM dyes before.

Pretty unnecessary at this point in the build, but was gratifying.

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Bought a new swivel magnetic 13/16 spark plug socket with a 10" attached extention and a set of plugs.

Plugs in the car are brand new. They must have thrown some parts at it trying to get the motor running. I can't remember the last time I used a 13/16 plug socket. I must have 5 of them. Now I have 6. It's likely I'll use the plugs and fancy new socket at some point. D-jetronic isn't that clean burning. The plugs read really nice for the 50 or so miles I've driven it.

Cap and rotor are newer too. Points have already been replaced with Pertronix.

Better news. I tested the manifold pressure sensor it holds 15" of vacuum just fine. That's crazy good. The MAP tends to leak. Rebuilds are unreliable and still spendy. NOS is $2100. The one soldered to the speeduino board cost $16 and can measure a lot more than load or no load.
 
Looks like it was 861 silver green metallic with a clearcoat and a 862 stone pine green metallic top. Interior looks like it was 206 moss.

Imported to the US with a hardtop, right side mirror, and power locks.

One of 8684 that year out of 66,000 over 19 years.





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Slammed some floors in. Got them in primer or rust converter. DS and trunk got Raptor liner.

The knee bolsters are part of the dash substructure, which is avacado,. The windshield padding/trim is green too. Both will need to be dyed in place. I threw the glove box door, speaker cover and dash cover on to see how green those parts are.

Dash cover needs a little fitting and I need to grand the cracks down on the dash underneath, but it fits nice.

Tossed the ash tray and console cover on too.

Driver seat is bolted down. Passenger still needs the frame fitted. We'll see how much I can live with the console for now.

DS window works. Bad switch. Ordered from Pelican with a PS motor.

Fuel sending unit works well, but needs a new o-ring. Leaks when full.

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New rear shocks and turned the rear rotors today. Hopefully gets rid of the wallowing. Kinda rides like a boat. Old shocks had plenty of gas charge left, but very little damping. Edit: it did fix it. It rides much better.

Rear had some grinding noise. not unusual in a car that sat so long. one of the backing plates was bent, prolly from the tire being flat and the rim sinking into the ground. Edit: fixed

O-rings I sourced for the sending unit didn't fit, but they gave me a better idea of what I needed. I found a perfect square profile O-ring on a Kubota oil filter. Prolly ended up being a $30 o-ring, but I think the filter came in a kit and it didn't fit my tractor. Either way, no fuel smell and the gauge works.

Pulled a valve cover. Valves are in spec. cover has been recently cleaned. Chain is tight. Gasket was still plenty pliable, but replaced anyway. Cam and oiling tubes all look good. Somebody took care of this car.

Sticky throttle is all gone. Brakes work better when they aren't fighting a torque converter.


Honestly, the car drove in and home today like a champ. It runs way better than it should.

And the new plate showed up for my little German tank.

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Got a radio in it today with the bluetoofs, USB and a charging port. It's a cheap media player, but it's blauplunkt so its kinda OK. The stock Becker Mexico radios are super spendy, mostly broken and just AM/FM. The center console is all busted up and will need some serious rebuilding at some point.

Replaced all the tail lights and courtesy lights with LED. Need to order up some more 1156s for the front.

Mounted the gas pedal so im not just stepping on the exposed linkage rod.

I'm currently pondering just letting the exterior be. The silver green is growing on me. I'll keep working at making it as good as it can be mechanically and get the interior a nice place to hang out.
 
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The left side has the fuse block. I bought an assortment of German fuses. I'll clean all the contacts and replace all the corroded fuses. I printed the English version of the paper fuse block label and ran it through the laminator. Having that corner finished really helps to tie the room together.

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Big job today was getting the passenger seat in. Dyed the last of the dash on the passenger side while the frame was drying after sandblasting and painting. Dyed the visors too. Still waiting on the new black visor clips.

Cleaned the courtesy light lenses in the sonic cleaner.

The rear luggage area wood was mostly still there, but rotted and nasty. And was covered in green carpet. Built a new piece using 1/2 birch with a pair of 6.5 speakers. Got a piece of 1/4" to cover the rear back. I think it'll be nicer to put the carpet on that than glued directly to the bulkhead. Black loop carpet should be here wednesday. I'm gonna try my little Kenwood powered sub behind the passenger seat.

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A hard miss has been getting worse. Seems to go away at cruise, but I'm not sure it's just not apparent at 3000 rpm.

#3 is considerably cooler with the thermal gun. Pulled the plug and it's pretty ash white. Pulled #2. It was a little sooty, but had just run from cold. Hooked a noid light to the harness and it flashed fine. That was a relief as the contact points for the FI are stupid expensive. Swapped injectors with #1 and the miss moved. So I ordered a new set of injectors. Worth it if I keep the motor. It runs really strong so worth the risk. Only thing is I don't want to drive it with a lean miss. Theres no knock sensors. Sucks. It is a lot of fun to drive.

Started on body work. Didn't mean to. Things got out of hand when I was helping a buddy with a bedside. we were waiting for primer to dry. Before I knew it the whole trimline on the driver door was bare metal, treated and in short strand. Then a couple few spots on the trunk.
 
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The youtubes seem to be correct. For some reason PineSol works good in the sonic cleaner.

New aftermarket injectors will be here Friday. I'll try the clean ones and if they work I'll wire the new injectors into the speeduino harness for when the time comes the D-jetronic lives up to its reputation.

Cleaned injectors seem to work well. The miss appears to be gone. It does now have a slightly rougher idle, but it might have a slight vacuum leak at one of the injector now. The seals were pretty whupped.


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New injectors arrived a day early, as stuff does when you don't need it anymore. I didn't investigate the idle problem, but I'm pretty happy with how it runs off idle.

New injectors cleaned up everything. Runs as it should now.

Fixed the winders. Switches showed up. DS needed a switch, the wires hooked up and a vapor barrier, so I had a window this morning when it was 34 degrees. I did some dynamat while the door card was off. PS had the new motor installed on the regulator, but the regulator still needed to go in the car. That took an hour or so today. It was fiddly. And the new motor didn't come with a pigtail so i had to make that. Drove it in with the top up and windows up. It was nice.

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Pulled the trans pan to put a new accumulator spring in and because the dipstick needed to get out of the way to replace the throttle valve bushing. That is gone completely. The trans gets into 3rd way too quickly and just slides through 2nd. Accumulator spring is a week point on the later transes. Not mine. It turns out it doesn't have one.

The throttle valve linkage does not come out between the firewall and bellhousing. I had to get it apart and get the bushing pressed in through a hole I could just get one hand in. The washer was held to the linkage with a cotter pin. It was rusted in and there was no way to get the legs straight. I cut the ends with a 12" pair of side cutters. Used a body saw to gets the nubs down enough to get the washer off. Punched the remnants out with a pin punch in a vise.

Long 6mm bolt through a 14mm socket for a receiver, then through the linkage eye. I could hold that in place with my right hand. Then I used the paper trick to hold the nut in a 10mm medium depth swivel 1/4 drive I bought for ls430 valve covers. I taped the bushing to the nut. I could snake that up my palm to the bolt. Pressed the bushing in pretty good. Replaced the cotter pin with a hair pin clip.

Shifts good now. Way better. This motor loves 3000 rpm. It's not an American torque monster. I was having to manually shift to 2nd on turns. Not any more.

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