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1963 Mercedes 230 SL W113 Tidy Up

398K views 946 replies 141 participants last post by  ted11 
#1 · (Edited)
(NEW UPDATES)1963 Mercedes 230 SL W113 Tidy Up (NEW UPDATES)

Hello every one, One of my good friends Jonas recently purchased this little gem to add to his collection.
This car had won numerous Concours events during the 1980`s but had not been shown since and was used on sunny days by its previous owner and although it has been very well looked after the car was in need of a little bit of love to bring it back to its former glory.
So my intension's are to go round the car to identify any issues and correct those and when these are taken care of we will finish it of with a full detail.
Here is the car


 
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#34 ·
Well iv just spent the last hour updating the thread and used up my photo loading quota for the day and when i have gone to load it its disapeared, so now I will have to do it all again tomorrow, what a bummer, I could have been working.
 
#36 ·
here are some pics of under the arch, it has had 6 coats of stonechip, 5 coats of paint, and 4 coats of lacquer, once this is hard enough to mask to I will be spray under sealing the upper parts of the wing again so it looks neater.
I have also painted the o/s sill in satin black and started the under floor area, I prepped the sill by using diluted G101 and a scoth brite pad as I wanted to remove any wax or Silicones that may be present and also get in the grain of the existing finish, once flated the whole area was wiped down with painters panel wipe to remove anything that was left.
I have also removed the front bumper to deal with the grotty front panel.
now the eagle eyed people out there will notice that the front of the under floor is not painted yet, this is because over the years the car has suffered from being jacked up in the wrong places and has caused quit a bit of damage to the front chassis leg and the floor pan so much so that it had flattened the ribs in the floor and pushed the floor pan up, I felt ther was little point in spending all this time doing the wheel arch then leave this which is only 6 inches away, I can hear it now, " why wasnt this attended to while he was at it" so thats what im correcting today when i have finished this update.
Once this is done I will re seal and paint the floor pan and try and make it look more presentable.
I have also had another mix of body colour to try and blend the wings in around the headlamp bowl, i have also got my painter coming on wednesday to start the roof repairs and paint.
I was recently asked how to repaint the hub caps, so as I am changing the SLs colour from Tobacco brown to light beige I will be doing a step by step guide to how I do them. enjoy the pics, more soon.
As always opinions, criticisms and ideas for a better job are always welcome,so if you think something could be done to improve the look of the car let me know.
Thanks for looking.

















 
#37 ·
Well, as my last update said I have being repairing the damaged floor not a hard job but rebuilding the profile in the floor was time consuming I also had to try and blend the finish into what was there before, the pictures are a little dark but you may be able to see what has gone on (Iwill take some more pics using more light) I then turned my attention to the underseal in the top wing area, I just wanted it to look tidy when and if any one was to take the time to look.
My job for today was to paint the suspension parts that were still attached to the car, as you can see by the pictures it was a bit dark so again I will take more pictures when its light.
All that is left to finish the arch is to bolt the shield back in, I will do this tomorrow then I can start the other side, this should go a little quicker as I know what worked on this one.
so here are the pictures, would you be hapy with it ?















 
#47 ·
AS promised i have got some updates,
First of I bolted all the brake and suspension parts back on but before refitting the hub assembly I removed the wheel bearings and cleaned all the grease out of the hub and rollers as I do not know how long it has been in there, all where repacked with fresh grease then refitted, just the brake hose, new body grommet and new pads left to complete the o/s/front. I have started stripping the n/s front inner arch, I wont bore you all with endless updates on this side but did want to show what happens when endless coats of underseal are added to what is already there, if the first coat has not bonded to the body correctly then the water will run between the seams and sit behind the sealer, there will be no signs of corrosion on the outside but have a look at the pictures and see what goes on behind, this will be ground back and treated, if necessary will be plated before its tidied up.
I have added a picture showing the thickness of the thinest area of sealer, there has also been some plating done in the footwell so this will need a bit of work to get the panel looking flat again.
I had my smart repairer in yesterday to make a start on the hard top roof, we removed it from the car and removed some of the mouldings, all the repairs are on the one side of the roof so we was going to blow these in but I have decided that the whole roof will be painted, this will freshen it up and whats a couple of more hours to do it properly, we finished yesterday with the repairs done and work will resume on this on monday, mean while I shall carry on under the arch.














 
#49 ·
Hello everyone, just a quick update on what has been happening.
As I said I wouldnt bore you all with the arch on the n/s as it is pretty much the same procedure as the o/s but will frow a few pics on anyway, oneof the other jobs i have attended to this week is the soft top cover as there appeared to be chunks out of it on the back edge (see early photos) once i had started to remove the vinyl it became clear that this had been repaired before but not very well, number plate stickers had been used to hold it together and one still had the backing on it, shows how much concentration was put into it, so what had happened the cloth had slid back and the cut outs were the part that went around the claws so it was just going to be that it had to be put back together properly, also the cover itself had been bent and not repaired so i had to tap these down primer and dab some paint on them.
then it was a case pf sticking it back on.
You will see what i mean by the pictures



















If I you have any questions or comments ask away.
Next update, the roof disaster ?
 
#51 ·
Thanks for your reply, unfortunately these sort of repairs seem to be the norm these days when another hour or two would see the job done to a good standard.
this is why I chose to share my work on DW because EVERY ONE on here goes that extra mile and appreciates when a job is done properly.
Again I thank you for taking the time to leave a comment as this does keep me motivated on the days when you dont always feel like doing any thing.
All the best
Ted:thumb:
 
#53 ·
Enthrawling work as always! I really love you write ups and still think it would be great to write a book with some of your work and write-ups in it! Ah, and I reckon we should start calling you "Father Ted", as we are all worshipping at your alter after reading these!!
 
#54 ·
I am very flattered that you enjoy my work so much, but I dont think for one minute that I am any more skilled at what I do than you and many others on DW are in your chosen professions.
I hope I can live up to your expectations with the rest of this car and any future projects that I take on.
Thank you very much for your kind and open comment it is worth more than any thing.:thumb:
 
#56 ·
How to get it wrong.
We wanted to lighten the colour of the roof up slightly as it was supposed to be tobacco brown but was extremely dark and didnt do any thing for the car (my opinion) so went along to the paint suppliers and had a look through the paint chips and found what I thought was a nice contrast to the soft top and seats.
Well if you could get it wrong this was as wrong as it gets, its nothing like the paint chip (or are my eyes failing).
The funny thing is I really like the colour, it looks like a bar of chocolate (I love chocolate) but its not any good for the car so I will be having another trip to the paint people (knew I should have got Mark to do it)
So just to give you all a laugh and prove that we all make mistakes here are some pics
first how it was

and the new


Shocking isnt it lol
here are a couple of pics from the retrim that I forgot, just a polish of the trim from the soft top cover (I know its called something else but I cant spell it)


After


More updates later
All the best
 
#61 ·
Good evening every one, hope you are all well.
here is the latest update.
Today I had booked my Smart repair man Craig (painted the 190SL when he worked for Perfection Motors) so has the merit badge to be allowed to work on one of my jobs lol, I wanted to discuss my options for some of the repairs that I needed done to the body work, the door edges needed doing, around the headlamps needed finishing properly, front panel needed finishing, rear quarter tops needed repainting as someone had already polished through to a previous colour, top of the front o/s/f wing had a shadow under the paint from some bad filler.
While we checked paint depths around the car to see what I had to play with when I get round to machine polishing it became painfully obvious that there wasnt going to be enough paint to play with or as Craig put it "the inner flitches would have a better finish than the outside".
Well this was not the point of detailing under the arches, it was to enhance the beauty of the car and not to make the rest of the car look poorly finished, now I did think that perhaps I had gone to far under the wings and at no time did I expect the comment from Craig and I still felt that the car looked exceptional even with a few defects and after all the car is 50 years old.
So it was time to decide what to do next.
My mind was made up when after Craig had carried out some investigating explained that the paint that was on the car was a paint used for commercial vehicles so was not the best quality paint and this is why i had problems with colour matching, also it was a solid colour so no clear-cote, so now I am walking around with my head in my hands trying to magic up a solution.
"Sod it, I want both sides painted in 2k paint with enough laquar on it that I can wet sand and polish it to death, I want no blemishes, ripples or chips showing and if we cant match the paint perfectly then we will paint the rest of the car as well"
Thats how it came out, what I really meant was HELP.
Any way Craig started repairing the defects he could find and by the time he went home had repaired around the headlamp and repaired some mapping under the paint (you can see in the photos the repair that was under the paint, the product that was used to rectify this was Upol Dolphin Glaze) the drivers door edges have also been seen to and both bits are now in primer, while he was doing his thing I buried myself under the wing and carried on with my bit, Craig will return to carry on when i have removed the rear bumper, arial, door handles, mirrors and trim, now this is a lot more work than was intended but I am not having any friend of mine driving round in a car that I have worked on looking less than perfect.
So less of the rambling, here are some pictures.


















I welcome your comments
 
#66 ·
Here we have a quick update, i have been cracking on with the n/s wheel arch, it turned out to be far more fiddly than the o/s but thats how it goes, I have lost count of the hours it has taken but I think it was worth it.
It was treated to 6 coats of stone chip, 5 coats of paint and 4 coats of lacquer but managed to get a couple of runs in the final coat (trying to get a nice wet finish) and was probably not warm enough so will flat it down and give it another coat of lacquer.
Here are some pictures .












Hope you all think it was worth the effort.
 
#67 ·
I was contacted by one of the members who is restoring his own Mercedes and making a nice job of it to, one of the questions he asked was what method do I use to repaint the hub caps, well as I have got 4 to do I thought I would do one to show him, now I have seen these done in a couple of ways but here is mine.
first job is to mask the whole hub cap with masking tape

Then once masked I use a plastic vinyl spreader to rub into the edges to make sure of a good seal.

Once this is done take a very sharp blade, cut round the edges of the rings and around the star, then peel the tape from the parts to be painted

With this done I can now flat the painted areas without damaging the chrome, be carefull not to rub through the masking tape.
Once flatted (if wet flatted remask before next stage) wipe of with panel wipe or eraser to remove any rubbish and check your masking if ok I start primming, 3 or 4 coats is normally enough, then allow to dry.
Once dry flat the surface once again, I then remove the masking and carefully flat the edges that have built up with the primer until nice and smooth

I then re mask as before but I take extra care to get the edges nice and neat as this is for the finish coat, then paint

I then allow the paint to go off but not completely cure, take the sharp blade and very carefully cut around the edges of the paint before peeling the masking tape off

The hub cap is now left to dry, any of the edges that have had paint creep under the tape is now easily removed using cutting compound

I normally clean them up and then re mask and add a couple of coats of lacquer but its up to you.
This becomes quit easy once you have done a few

I hope that this is a good enough explanation and good luck.
By the way the hub cap was not done in the correct colour as I have had the car spectrum analyzed to get a perfect match so the paint is been mixed on monday so i will just nib the hub cap and paint over the top.
 
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