Spac’s Adventures in Mercedes

Spac · 2020-09-16T06:11:19+00:00

Paid $200 for this including delivery. It is an M271.980, same as what’s in my car. 200,000km old, blown head gasket. I grabbed it because I figured it would...

Spac

VolvoHordz
Why weld the bolt to the plate? Why not just bolt it through the plate and washer?

Because I didn’t make the ears on the U section long enough to clear the bolt head.

Spac

/\ There’s a gusset on the bottom that dodged the camera.

Mk2 U mount, still with me not smart enough to make it with a loose bolt.

This time around, I tacked the bolt to the plate, and then welded a 10mm long section of rollcage tube, and then welded the thick washer to the tube. This keeps a lot of heat out of the bolt, but was still a work-around for a dumb moment in making the U-sections.

Look mum, no hands! Or engine hoists or jacks or…

This M111 motor is the easiest engine swap for these cars, but the clearances are tight. I presume that nobody mentions it because they use the particular MB arms that just work and everyone takes it for granted.

Anyway, this is going to be fine because the new mounts are super stiff and the engine isn’t going to move much at all.

It has been stood up by 1.1* compared to how it sat in the W202. This gives me a tiny bit more room for the exhaust, and a tiny bit less for the intake. I didn’t intend it, but this is the best way to be not perfect - the exhaust is going to be a PITA, this will make it maybe 5mm less of a PITA.

Spac

This morning’s discovery is that my ever-faithful old blue trolley jack that was holding up the gearbox had sagged about 60mm over the previous 24 hours.

This explains why the clearances were so tight!

This morning, I modified the manual W202 gearbox crossmember to fit the W201 body.

Compared to the auto W201 x-mem, it is wider and uses four bolts rather than two to bolt to the body. It is also a totally different shape where the rubber mount bolts on (preventing me from using the original 190E one with the manual box).

Here it is, almost finished. I have since trimmed off the extra bit, and turned the slot on the bottom back into a hole.

Was supposed to be the quick solution, but it took all morning…

Now to pull them all out and paint them.

I also cleaned up the “first firewall”.

These cars have a false firewall in the engine bay, that keeps engine heat away from the battery, brake master cylinder, wiper motor etc. The centre part (directly behind the cylinder head) of it bolts in, and is covered in a thin layer of foam.

The heat trick didn’t work on the foam: the foam got very soft before the adhesive softened.

So I resorted to the wire brush on the angle grinder, and then litres of thinners on a rag to remove the adhesive from the steel.

Spac

Seat mounts today.

Navigator first.

Removing the standard rear mounts was a turd of a job, even with the swish spot weld drill. If you look closely, I actually managed to go right through the floor twice… The shame!

The bulge in the floor for the cat converter pushed the seat too far to the left/outboard.

Hammer time!

Welded up.

I am going to bolt the seat to the floor, basically as low and as far back as I can. These are not big cars, so pushing the nav back and down makes it less likely to bash elbows or otherwise irritate each other.

I totally failed to take progress photos of the driver’s mounts. Basically the same as the Mirage front mount - spreader plates welded to the inside of the sill and tunnel, and then RHS between them.

The lateral members have crush tubes welded in.

/\ Ah, crap. I want to lower the rear of the seat but it is hitting the B pillar.

There’s numerous possible solutions, but the first one I will try is to simply space up the right hand side of the seat - the seat is slightly tilted outward now.

Not sure how all of this was a solid day’s work, but it was.

Nav’s seat is just sitting in place, and is far too reclined. Another job for tomorrow.

I also spent some time cleaning the goo off the floor on the navigator’s side … until the thinners made me woozy.

Edit. Ducked back out and slid a piece of 5mm thick steel under the rear mount. Looks like it will work.

Spac

Mirrors.

These are cheap copies of some 1970s Opel sports mirrors. I bought them ages ago as a possible alternative to the hideously expensive Sebring mirrors.

Today, I adapted them to the old Mercedes.

Step 1 is self explanatory.

Step 2 was to cut them flat.

Then I drilled a hole into the flat face of the mirror housing, and whack a self-tapper in, through a hole in the aluminium plate. Then a second self tapper, who’s head rests against the outside of the plate to set the angle of the mirror.

Worked fine on the driver’s side.

However… the navigator’s side mirror needs to be on much more of an angle, and the housing was sticking out in the wind before I could actually see anything in the mirror.

Solution… maybe.

Thinking that I can stick the glass in with windscreen sealant, and then use the screw method to make the fine adjustments.

I also got the seat mounts finished. Worked out really well, except I think that I would prefer to be a bit lower.

The nav’s seat is also finished except for the load spreader plates for the underside (not pictured).

…and chipped the last of the tar off the floor and firewall.

There was a bit of experimenting with the floor mount pedal box, but it makes me too cramped. If I had thought about it before mounting the seat, then it could be an option… but it isn’t.

Anyhow, this is how it sits.

Spac

Light bar progress today… although it was a short day on the car because I prepped the dirt bike for a race I’m not going to, and because I discovered mice have been living in the Falcon and it needed a lot of cleaning/vacuuming (and still needs a lot more).

Started by fitting the damaged bar from the white 180E, as the light bar mount will cover the damaged bit.

Note aluminium plate on the right of the photo. It is the basis of the mounting bracket.

Glued the cracked piece back on. Will need a better fix than this.

Early mock up.

There’s three heli-coiled mounting holes across the front edge, that the light bar bolts to.

Original plan was to mount the light bar forward to give clearance between the bonnet (as it opens) and the spot beams that will live on the top side of the bumper, but I decided not to go that way.

Basically, I didn’t want the mount to stick out so far in front of the bumper when the light bar is off the car.

Dummy bracket for the spot light. I have a bad habit of setting up lights so they fit nicely but don’t have enough clearance to adjust them properly. This is why the spot beam is pointing up towards the sky - to make sure that it can be adjusted enough!

Trimmed down the corners. Hopefully once the bracket and bumper are both painted black, then bracket will be unobtrusive.

Cut into the passenger’s side mirror and glued the glass into place. No finished photos because I forgot to take them and it is cold outside now.

Aside: the 180E looks awful with the unbroken bumper from Kirin on it.

Philia_Bear

@Spac

Why not mount cheap chinabay reverse cameras on the outside and cheap displays on the inside?

The ADR's allow for it and it makes it easier to repair post "incidents"

Spac

Philia_Bear
@Spac
Why not mount cheap chinabay reverse cameras on the outside and cheap displays on the inside?
The ADR's allow for it and it makes it easier to repair post "incidents"

Was considered, but simplicity has value.

This includes the simplicity of not having to argue with scrutineers about whether something is acceptable or not. Especially when it comes to road legality stuff that they have neither authority nor training on, but seem determined to enforce regardless.

Philia_Bear

Spac
https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/comment/205491#Comment_205491
Was considered, but simplicity has value.
This includes the simplicity of not having to argue with scrutineers about whether something is acceptable or not. Especially when it comes to road legality stuff that they have neither authority nor training on, but seem determined to enforce regardless.

makes sense

if you want something 3d printed out of PTEG, let me know ?

Spac

Light bar progress.

Sleeves welded in. Lumpy welding is a mix of brain not warmed up, and the weld being surprisingly awkward to get to. It’s all well hidden when the car is together…

Support/steady studs added.

Rags on the left are to catch overspray where I have painted the tow hook red. Good rule for circuit racing that was stupidly applied to rallying.

Then to patch up the bumper bar. I have a feeling that the ABS bumpers are going to give me the shits over time, but will wait and see.

I still need to paint the grey part black, but that can wait until the car is much closer to being finished.

Spac

You know how I said that I might not like the ABS bumper in the longer term?

Why wait?

Light bar pretty close to finished.

Also fitted the bonnet pins. Anyone reading this far has heard it all before, but I had a big brain moment today.

The springs push the bonnet up against the pins, so the bonnet doesn’t rattle…

… and so the panel gaps can be set up right.

I have done a variation on this on a lot of cars, but this is easily the neatest and most effective.

Medium-brain moment was working out how to get pop the rear pop rivet when the gap is too small for the end of the rivet gun.

Only took me about 20 years to work that one out.

Also cleaned up some more floor goo, in anticipation of making the mounting brackets for the false floor tomorrow.

Spac

Off to Lochleigh Enterprises tomorrow to get the rollcage parts bent up!

Not much real work today, much more about cleaning the car to make it mobile.

Drained the fuel tank before loading it up. 25 litres of Falcon fuel for free!

Spac

Dash progress today.

3mm aluminium cut to shape.

Oddly packaged 85mm holesaw.

… to make the holes for the ebay tacho and GPS speedo.

Looking ok, but I wasn’t happy with how the panel sat in the dash.

Sort-of test fit in the white 180E, so make sure that I wasn’t creating a disaster.

Brackets.

/\ I trimmed some material from the top edge, so it sits more deeply into the dash. Just looks more ‘normal’.

I won’t worry about securing the right hand side until I know how the rollcage interacts with the dashboard.

Still need to add an oil pressure and alternator warning light.

Standard 52mm gauges fit nicely into the holes where the heater controls originally lived. They’re up high enough that I am happy to put the temp gauge there. Will probably fill the third hole with an oil pressure gauge.

I am still indecisive about the switch gear. I have figured out the oin outs for the combination switch and will reuse it.

The factory light switch has left me totally perplexed: despite being very heavy duty and apparently capable of full current switching, I can’t figure out how to get it to work without using relays… at which point I would prefer to just use a toggle switch and relays.

Ignition switch is probably going to use the original electrical switch without the factory lock/key.

jamesinc

The fitment between the air vent hole and the gauge is mint, maybe an industrial designer at Mercedes was thinking of you when they sized the vents ?

Spac

”Just cut some aluminium sheet to size and make some brackets. Won’t take long…”.

Ha!

Admittedly, I haven’t been spending solid days on this, but it is slow going.

First up today was mounting the “ignition key”. Battery isolation switch is cheap, simple and able to handle high current.

Having an Accessories position would be nice, but is not essential.

Painted the instrument surround, and began on the fill panel on the left

The brackets for this were the really slow going - having to align them on two planes at once means lots of assembly and disassembly, but it is all sorted now.

Stereo slot is now the mounting point for the fuse box. The lid of the spray can showed it as a much darker blue, but I don’t think that it matters enough to repaint… maybe.

Alternator light is between the speedo and tacho. Blinker and high beam dash lights are in the speedo (and are a big part of why I chose this speedo).

White button is the starter button. I think push button starts are a wank, but this way I can get away without a relay, and it is in the place my hand instinctively reaches for when I go to start a car (not to the left of the column where the factory ignition switch is). Hopefully this will be helpful if/when I stall the car mid stage.

The slot above the small gauges is where the oil pressure light is going to live. I ordered the light and the oil pressure gauge this morning, so have to wait for them to turn up.

Will also have to fit a light switch. Want to put it where the original was (on the dash to the left of the steering column in typical European fashion), but will need to see what works once the rollcage is fitted.

I can’t explain how there’s about 8 hours of solid work in this next photo, but there is!

Cage stuff is done. Will collect it and the car tomorrow.

Spac

Rollcage begins. Lots of paranoia about the process/order of doing things, but feeling confident at this point!

Biggest hassle is remembering to only tack weld - have to keep fighting the urge to get stuck in and weld it fully.

Also tried using vinegar to remove the black (millscale) from the steel. Apart from the time it takes, two big thumbs up.

Should add that this was a solid day’s work… I don’t know if I am being overly cautious, overly pedantic, over thinking or just not very good at it, but I don’t think that it should take this long!

Spac

Took some intense procrastination, but I had to do this…

The seat is too high with the cage, so I am cutting the mounts back out.

Actually, it is probably too high - but if I pretend that it is ok and continue building the rollcage around it, it will be nearly impossible to fix later.

Biting the bullet and sorting it now might be redundant but is the safer option.

Philia_Bear

Always make lighter

Spac

Again, lots of work for little progress… but progress nonetheless.

I got the seat mounts out and prepped for the second attempt at them - plenty of time in removing the remnants of the old bits with grinder and flapper wheel.

Also realised that I can now fit the floor mount pedal box. Need to think what I want to do… been plenty of scope creep on this project already.

Spac

No floor mounted pedals.

Progress… Seat is just sitting there, to make sure that everything is in the correct spot.

Reclaiming the crush tubes from front part of the the old seat mount. I could reuse the rear one.

Make the noise, etc.

. Red texts line is where the top of the square section used to be - about 30mm higher. Also note plate welded to the outboard front mount - will make the car easier to work on, compared to having a loose spacer plate.

These little corner braces were a nightmare to make. The bottom mitre is on an angle (ie: it is not on the same plane as the front leg), the top mitre is on a different angle AND on a bend in the windscreen bar. Single most time consuming part of the build so far.

I began on the Sainz bars (aka A-pillar support bars) but it got too late and I didn’t want to annoy the neighbours.

Because I put the hoop further back, the bars for the roof V are now too short.

I will take them to Lochleigh tomorrow and get Rod to make me some slightly longer ones.

These short ones will be repurposed to be the rear door intrusion bars. The bend in them will give more room to get the spare wheel in and out (it will live in the rear seat area).

I have enough tube left to do the rear legs, the V in the rear legs, and the bars out to the strut towers. I also want to put a dash bar in (behind the firewall, just below the windscreen), so I will collect that when I get the new roof V bars.

This is more or less where it sits now - although missing the windscreen braces in this photo.

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