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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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#99 ·
I know I'm a bit late but I would want to do the whole car myself but if a slightly easier option could be taken without significantly compromising the restoration I would look for that. Would it really notice that the shuts and slam etc hadn't been done since they will always be viewed at different angles?
 
#100 ·
Thanks for your input and yes in some ways I can see your point BUT the door shuts etc havnt been painted very well in the wrong colour so needed doing anyway also I couldnt bring myself to do any colour change without doing the associated bits and although the engine bay is the correct colour I did contemplate removing the engine to give it a fresh coat but this would add a lot more time to the job.
Unfortunatley I am one of those people who needs to do the job to my satisfaction or not do it at all, a bit frustrating for the owners but at the end they always get better than they expected.
thanks for taking the time to write your views as a lot of people dont bother but all feedback is important to me and it shows how much interest you are taking in my work and this is what sharing in our community DW is all about. :thumb:
 
#101 ·
I have a few updates, had a couple of parts left to prep and paint so that the brakes could be re built, getting two coats of powder coating off is a pain in the ,ss but has to be done, put some paint on the sump pan, now better on the eye.
Last week I started to polish the inlet manifold but was hampered by the throttle linkage and as I wanted to remove the rocker cover so it could be polished I decided to remove the linkages and some pipes and im going to get these re coated, the injector pipes were something special and had silver tape wrapped around them (why God only knows) and I recon I can make them shine without the tape so these were removed, this also will make it easier to detail the top half of the engine.
I also removed all the old grease from the hub and re packed it with new grease,then re fitted it to the car, you will notice that the shock absorber is not yet fitted as I am getting the top washers re coated as well.
Getting the injector pipes to shine is proving to be harder than expected and have now spent 7 hours polishing them and only half way there (where is my silver tape) some of the parts that I have removed are going to be done in black so I have got plenty to do along with stripping all the bright work from the body, the rear inner arches, clean the rear axle and paint all necessary parts, paint the n/s sill and under floor, my list seems to be getting longer and not shorter.
Here are a few pictures to keep you going, will update as things progress,



















As usual all comments welcome
 
#102 ·
Just a little update,have spent the last 2 days flatting and polishing the injector pipes and managed to get some of the inlet manifold done, once i have finished that i will remove the rocker cover and polish that, will update later



 
#105 ·
Bet you all thought i had give up lol, well I have spent the last week and a bit polishing, polishing and more polishing.
Firstly I had the injector pipes to finish of, this took far longer than I had anticipated and probably why the last person used silver tape but time is not an issue and they look rally good now they are done, then it was back on to the inlet manifold,this turned out to be very hard work for not much benefit and to be honest very disappointed with the finish but to be able to remove the damage caused by the previous polisher it would have to be removed and a lot of alloy would have to be ground away and judging by the work on the next item would probably take about a month to get it up to a good standard, but for now it is improved a little.I then removed the rocker cover thinking this would only need a quick polish (wrong again) I started with the oil filler cap which only took about 20 minutes and looked fantastic but boy did it make the rocker cover look s..t this had also had a previous polish by some lunatic that had put more marks in it than he had took out, so since this is the biggest thing you see under the bonnet I thought I had better try and make this more than just presentable.
The first thing I decided was to try and get rid of all the rough cast marks and pit marks from the cover, also previous polishing had damaged the firing order numbers that are cast on the cover so I decided these would have to be completely removed, so I first started with 80 grit on a DA sander and after an obscene amount of hours removed most of the defects also while I was doing this it became clear that the previous polishing was done on a polishing wheel and had left the cover looking rippled and tram-lined so I would try and remove as much of this effect as I can during the flatting stages,once I felt I had smoothed enough of the casting I then went for 120 grit dry on a DA to remove some of the course grit marks left by the 80 grit and paying particular attention to trying to remove the ripples (this took 14 hours) once this was done I called it a day, the next morning I started flatting wet with 400 grit wet and dry and a block this high lighted the low spots so kept fatting until all but the worse deep lows were out 7 sheets of 400 were used and another 7 1/2 hours (was getting really tedious) and I had only done three quarters of the cover, needing to be inspired by this time so thought I would have a rest from the 400 and leave the last bit for another day but needed to see some shiny stuff to keep me going ( im sure you have all been there) so were I had finished with the 400 went over this with 800 and slowly could see that we were starting to get to the point were it could be polished, unfortunately at this point my wife came in the garage and ordered me to stop as I had been in there for 14 hours ( now why I had to stop just because she wanted to go to bed is beyond me ) so we get to yesterday (Tuesday) Finished of doing the 800 grit and went on to 1000 grit then 2000 grit then finished of with 3000 grit, it was now 6.30 and time for tea so play had to stop for an hour but as all the soaps would be on I knew it was safe to disappear back into the garage to finish of the 3000 and start polishing ( you may all think that I make this up but anyone who knows me personally will tell you this is what I do and Is why I have to go to therapy sessions supposedly to control my OCD) any way on to the good stuff, I am using a felt wheel on a electric drill and starting with autosol then I will use autosmart PEEK which is a bit finer then I will use snot of a chickens beak if it will make it shine more, well it was 20 past 3 this morning when I took the photos and had only done about half of the cover with autosol but here are the pictures so far, also included is a picture of one of Davids (the lord of darkness) 3 recent acquisitions that I had to spend a couple of hours on last Saturday, also the roof was first stage polished on saturday.


















I hope that you are still finding this job interesting and appreciate all your comments
 
#108 ·
You should have bought the last one I built for myself, I spent a year building it then drove it one hundred yards to check the brakes were ok, then couldnt bring myself to drive it in case I got it dirty, so I sold it for less than the parts cost me. I have bought myself a Merc clk convertable i have had it since march and havnt drove it yet because I havnt had time to clean it properly lol.:devil:
 
#114 ·
Well its 10.45 this evening when I called it a day working on the rocker cover and I am happy with the finish, although I will give it one more lick over before its refitted to the car.
I did have some heavy pitting to take care of so used my mini tool around the awkward parts, then 80 grit,120, 400, 800,1000,2000,3000 grit then started polishing, its probably taken me 9 hours today but thats what it takes to get the right results.
Tomorrow I intend to strip more of the chrome from the car so that Craig can get on with the body work i also need to source some parts for the car and also find a local sand blaster to get all the throttle linkages and brackets cleaned before Zinc coating, any way here are the pics of the work today.
More updates as I go along.
Cheers for looking.











 
#117 ·
Hi everyone, well after finishing the rocker cover I spent today stripping the chrome mouldings, door handle, door card of the car this needs to come of to remove the door mirror had to stop at 3 oclock as I had an appointment to get my Mohican refreshed (bleached blonde) so got back at 5.30, had my tea then at 7.00 entered my man cave, my mission for tonight was to get all the hub caps stripped of paint ready for me to try a new method of masking them up to get a crisper edge on the paint, I have already shown my normal method but the paint does creep under the normal masking tape which means that you have to re-mask when primer has gone on, then again after paint ready for laquer.
So ordered some Frisket Film, this is what is used by air brush artists, it is a low tack clear film that can be stuck in place and cut using a craft knife, so I was quit excited to try this method, so the paint was stripped using Nitromore, once the paint was off, it was time to inspect the hub caps for any dents or damage, the outside was perfect but inside where the retainer lugs on the wheels had rubbed through the plating and rust was forming, so first job is to sort the inside to slow the rust down as It wont be long before it spreads to the outside.
I used a resin rust removal wheel on a drill to get rid of the rust, once done I masked the inner ring that was in perfect condition and didnt want to paint the whole of the inside, etch primer was then sprayed and left to dry, once dry gave it a light flat with a fine scotch bright pad and some chrome paint was put over the top and left for 20 minutes, i then removed the masking and lacquered the whole of the inner metal, this hopefully will keep the rust at bay for a while longer.
Now the moment I have been waiting for, get the film out, measure a size big enough to cover the hub cap, peel off the backing and started from the center star and working outwards stick the film down by rubbing with a vinyl applicator, well within about 2 minutes it was obvious that the film was not going to work as its not flexible enough to work and was crinkling up, (anti climax) so it was peeled of and threw into the bin, I now needed another plan.
Casting my mind back to the 190 SL rebuild, I had tried using plastic lining tape but it reacted with the paint and appeared to be no good for this job but thinking back I had been over keen with the paint and lacquer, so decided to give it another go, so out with the tape and started masking, now this was quit fiddly to get it in the right place but this was probably down to the shine of the hub cap hiding the the lines to be masked, but after about 20 minutes it was ready for etch primer which I made sure that I didnt put it on to wet, I put 3 coats on and leaving it 10 minutes between coats, this was then left to dry.
Once dry I gave it a nib with a scotchbrite pad to remove a few spots of s..t and applied the first coat of paint (not to heavy) and using a heat gun to keep things warm added 3 more coats, checking the lining tape after each coat and it was looking ok.
I kept the heat gun on low heat for twenty minutes then laid on the first coat of lacquer, 2 lite coats and the tape is still ok so decided to put one last wet coat on and keeping my fingers crossed and the heat gun keeping the hub cap warm, now I would need to remove the masking before the paint starts to go hard so after 30 minutes and using the blade of a craft knife I lifted the lining tape enough to be able to hold it with my fingers gently pulled the tape away from the painted surface and hey presto a perfect edge to the paint.
so it was obviously my fault that it didnt work in the past but will be using this method in the future.
Anyway its now 4.50 am so here are some pictures.
Thanks for looking and will let you know how the other 3 hub caps come out.


















 
#118 ·
Looks as good as ever.
Might I just advise you?.
When applying low tack vinyl to contours you use a heat gun on a low setting and a firm brush to dab it into the reassesses. I know you have watched videos on youtube for car wrapping so this procedure is the same method (Hope this helps you in the future).
 
#121 ·
Seems like ages since my last update but I havnt been slacking. have been removing the outer trims and getting on with some repairs, or should i say assisting Craig with some repairs, we will resume the body work tomorrow if it ever stops raining.
I have also clocked some miles trying to find someone who could zinc coat some engine parts but no one could promise that I would get the bits back this side of xmas so had no choice but to clean them up myself, this has been a real fiddle as I wanted to get a nice finish so ended up having to flat all the parts to get rid of the manky passivate these were then primered and painted, I finished tonite at 10.30.
I have also finished painting the other three hubcaps, which have come out really nice.
Tomorrow i will be repainting the o/s front suspension again as Clumsy Craig got over spray on it ( I specificly told him to not get any paint over it ) now I am worried what he will do to my engine bay when he repaints it, anyway I will update as I go along, enjoy the pictures.
All comments are more than welcome.
Thanks for looking















 
#123 ·
yes, I have looked at them myself in the past, but there is always some other work to be done so normally easier to get them done commercially while i get on with other jobs and to be fair doesnt cost that much to get done.
You seem to be getting on well with your Merc and making a good job of it to, im looking forward to your updates.:thumb:
 
#125 ·
Well just when you think that you have seen every type of bodge job something else pops up, now I have no idea what was going on in the blokes mind when he was fitting the mouldings but I think he must have been in the building trade.
Whilst all the screws in the mouldings were rusty and the heads no longer had any screwdriver slots in them I was forced to get to the back of the panels and turn the screws with little mole grips until there was enough showing on the outer panel to grip them, this worked quit well until I come to do the o/s door, this would involve removing the inner door panel (should have been the easiest panel to do) so having stripped a number of these in the past I knew it was a five minute job, so removed all the relevant screws, winder handle etc and normally they fall off, not this one, what have I forgot to take off (talking to myself) I go round the trim again, nothing should be holding it, so with a trim removal tool I gentley try and prize the trim away from the door, this dont feel rite and feels like I will break the trim if I prize it any more, so now I am convinced that I wasnt as experienced with these cars as I thought I was and their is some thing else holding this on, there was only one thing left to do, have a cup of coffee. now even if their was some more screws holding it the outer edges of the panel should be free so decided I would try and slide a steel rule down the outer edge of the panel to see if i could feel any screws, it was only when I tried this did I realize that the panel had been glued on (one of them moments when you think, why did I start this job), now how do i get this off without damaging the trim, was tempted to leave it on and get craig to mask around the moulding but there is a door mirror to remove to, then I slapped myself around the face a couple of times for even thinking about not removing it, so I give up for the day and would start with more enthusiasm the next day.
Well after putting my tools away and feeling like I had been beaten I realized that I have removed stuck down vinyl from other items before with out damage so decided to have another go, using my steel rule and gloves started to work the rule between the panel and the trim it slowly worked its way in upto about 9 inches then worked it down with a bit of force until I had freed a section down the opening side of the door, I then got my 36 inch steel rule and worked it all the way to the far side of the lower trim, once their was enough trim free to ease it away from the door it was coming away better until the glue finally give in and the trim came off, when I lifted the panel off I thought " this feels heavy" when I turned it around the normal pressed card board backing had been replaced with 3 mm thick galvanized sheet, now if I knew this I could have just prized the bloody thing off without all that mucking about but it was off and now i could get the door mirror off and the screws holding the molding on, once the screws were removed and as with the rest of the trim (and this is the bodge) the trim wasnt coming off and also had to be prized of, no it wasnt glued, they were held on with window putty.
Yesterday Craig arrived to crack on with the body prep, he finished the repairs to the headlamp bowls and a couple of dents and bad repairs to the o/s wing, he also finished the front panel, now the last time he covered my nice suspension with paint so he was going to be more careful this time.
here are some of the pictures.


















 
#130 ·
I did say in an earlier update that we will be prepping upto the final flat at my home but the car will be transported to a spray booth for painting. thank you for taking an interest and I will be adding the painting process to this thread so stay tuned and see if we can make this car better than the 190 sl that we built.:thumb:
 
#134 ·
I have been sent a photo of the car with the information boards showing the concourse places it achieved during the late seventies and early eighties, so I thought I would share it with you, and you never know it may be good enough to win some thing in the future.

enjoy
 
#137 ·
lol, I wondered why it says on the one board 18-23 mpg, if the door cards where left of it would do 30 mpg.
Mercedes spent a fortune to save weight on these cars, fitting aluminum doors, bonnet and boot, then joe bloggs comes along and puts the car back 20 years. :lol::lol::lol::wall:
 
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