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

Sainz bar test fit. It is going to be ugly when it comes to refitting the dashboard, but that’s a problem for future Spac.

The top mitre was a turd, just like it was in the Fiesta.

Note also the dash bar. Clears everything except the forward-most part of the glovebox.

Currently stopped for lunch, have almost finished the angled braces before the top of the hoop and the back of the front legs. I am getting better at the angled mitres, but they’re still more difficult than when both bits of tube are on the same plane.

Edit…

Here’s where I got to today.

Saina bars are just tacked in place. I eyeballed the upper door intrusion bars to be parallel, and then eyeballed the Sainz bars to be parallel.

Little bit of gloating… This is the bottom section of the Sainz bar (that goes between the intrusion bars) and the upper Sainz bar. The lower section is sitting on the mitre - pretty much perfectly the same angle.

Full disclosure… there’s some ugly welds that need to be cleaned up. I had a few that were a bit ugly, and figured that another run over the top would tidy them up… but I made these ones worse. facepalm

The second one is super annoying, because it is probably the most visible weld in the entire cage… oh well, flapper discs were invented for a reason.

Spac

Taco Tuesday was on a Wednesday this week.

Prototype mounting foot was too low, but photo shows oversized mounting plates, and annoying, time consuming base of the Sainz bar.

Welded the rear mount plates in, although nothing will go to them until next week.

Doesn't really look much different to yesterday, but I actually feel like I accomplished something today.

Got the new roof bars bent. Will install tomorrow… after I have bought more welding gas.

Philia_Bear

@spac

Try metal core wire with general mig gas the next time you pick up wire

Way easier for stuff like this

Spac

Philia_Bear
@spac
Try metal core wire with general mig gas the next time you pick up wire
Way easier for stuff like this

The main thing I was struggling with, is running off course.

Spac

Gas man not at the shop today, so no welding for me.

More work on the front mounting feet (boring, no photo), and doing a dummy assemble of the interior.

First discovery is that the slightly tweaked rollcage position has left the factory dash support bar and one of the front legs in a territorial dispute.

Lousy photo, but it is supposed to show the notch out of the black bar to clear the rollcage leg. I will tack them together once it is all finished.

Second discovery is that now the original steering column bracket (the black one, in front of the dash bar) will work without being modified.

Navigator’s side Sainz bar fits! Literally just pushed up against the bottom of the dash.

[ Argh… this photo \/ is upside down and in the wrong order. It shows the driver’s Sainz bar pushing hard against the dashboard]

Will need to cut the dash on the driver’s side. I can push it into place, but it distorts the dash quite a lot. Still better than I expected.

This also means that I cannot use the factory location for the headlight switch, but no big deal.

So… people fit, with enough clearance around things like elbows and helmets. It’s not even difficult to get in or out of the car (as far as these things go).

Through absolutely no management at all, the Sainz bar doesn’t block the driver’s vision past the A-pillar.

… however, the time spent getting the nav’s side rear vision mirror lined up, was wasted:

Hopefully the curvy interior mirror will compensate enough. If it doesn’t, then a permanently-on reversing camera will do.

Fuse box and centre gauges all seem fit nicely without interfering with the shifter.

The hydraulic handbrake looks like it will fit nicely over the RHS of the shifter.

So right now, I am feeling an odd mix of pleased with myself and overwhelmed by how much more there is still to do. Hopefully I can get the front part of the cage squared away tomorrow and can feel good about that.

My cage man has come down with the spicy cough and won’t be back to work before next Tuesday, so I won’t be able to finish the rear half before then (because I need to buy a couple more metres of tube).

Now off to make the gussets for where the intrusion bars and Sainz bars meet.

Spac

Getting the process for making these gussets sorted… although I did make one crooked and have to spend a fair bit of time trimming it back to the right shape.

The lower gussets are just small triangular pieces and are much easier to make.

I ended up getting more gas this afternoon, so finished welding the plates to the floor for the front legs. The mounting towers are roughed out, but are going to be a bit of a turd to finish, as they will need to be trimmed to match both the floor and the inside wall of the sill (which are not at 90* to each other).

Trying to get the process for painting clear in my head.

Current thoughts:

Once the welding is finished for the front half of the cage, with the cage dropped, then I prime everything, and paint everything that can’t be accessed when the cage is in place.

Then put the cage back in place, weld it into the car, and paint everything that is left.

Then cover the cage and paint the floor in white.

Spac

Roof V and some of the gussets went in today.

I have put the first coat of paint on everything that I can’t get at once it is installed. Hopefully I will be able to weld the cage in place tomorrow.

I am going to cut the dashboard in half, so I can just weld the Sainz bars in and don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Spac

I think this is going to work…

I hope this is going to work!

Staggered cuts are intended to make reassembly easier.

Petey correctly advised to make an angled cut for this reason, but that would make the brackets much more complicated and difficult to construct.

Spac

Dash will need to be cut more to fit in around the Sainz bars.

But the good news is…

It’s in.

Still plenty more to do, but in.

On advice from a mate who works at a cage fabricator, I put some cage tubing into the towers. Not essential, but I figured that it can’t hurt.

Depending on how hungover I am tomorrow, I hope to get the towers boxed in.

Spac

Solid afternoon, after a lazy morning (election hangover…).

Finished the front mounts. Tube is just sitting in place in this photo - were welded before putting the cover plates on the towers.

Behold! The prettiest weld I have ever managed… and some less pretty.

Also fitted the navigator side strut tower bar. Photo was pre-welding.

And then finished the hoop towers. Simple plate took ages to get right … and there’s four of them.

Finished foot.

Aborted/prototype foot might be repurposed into a driver’s footrest.

Forgot to take a photo of the dash in the car, but it fits now.

Here’s the modified glovebox, now with added rollcage. I think that I will bend up some aluminium to reseal the glovebox and make it usable again.

Daggy old piece of aluminium scrap on its way to becoming part of the demister ducting.

Spac

Spare wheel mount. The wheel lies flat on top of the transmission tunnel, the RHS stops it rocking over.

It looks as though I can use the original seat belt mounting points to fit harness eye mounts, and then two ratchet straps to secure the spare wheel.

Only likely fly in the ointment is that I might want to use the mount on the navigator’s side of the tunnel for the navigator’s harness.

Mounts for the driver’s false floor and relocated accelerator pedal (because some inconsiderate person put a rollcage mounting foot in the way).

This is actually a good thing to do anyway - the original pedals were all offset to the right (like a 140), so this is fixing that issue.

Spac

Driver’s strut tower bar, and fuse box cover plate. If I was better at this, I would have been able to just make one plate with an elongated hole. I tried, but got the angle of the hole wrong, so had to make it as a two-part plate.

The remaining gap will be filled with sikaflex or something, but I am very happy with how it has worked out.

Should be, there’s about four hours work in it all…

Spac

Relocated accelerator pedal. The rod is shortened and straightened.

Here’s an unmodified one for comparison.

Brake pedal bent over to the left to restore the clearance.

Another terrible photo, but it shows the brake pedal moved to the left, and consequently down a bit. This should be a good thing, because the floor level will be about 20mm lower than original.

I also bent the clutch pedal over, but it moved upwards… I am going to leave it for now, but will probably extend it later.

Another terrible photo, but this is the frame for the false floor. If you look carefully, you will be able to see the foot rest hidden in the shadows ahead of the rag at the top of the photo.

Spare wheel stopper. This will be welded to the top of the transmission tunnel, and is designed to stop the spare wheel moving forward in a front-on crash.

Just a “state of play” photo.

Update…

Spac

Today’s stupid idea…

Making a sealed box so the fuel pump can live safely inside the car (rather than under the rear seat area), and so I can run the muffler through the space where the fuel pump used to live, to give a shorter, straighter exhaust .

With it all planned out in my head, there’s a solid five hours work in that… and I don’t have a lid or a way to attach the lid yet.

Evening edit…

Other news is that I have most of the parts for the throttle bodies.

The plastic bag are the spacers that are the correct length to make the throttle bodies match the MB ports.

Aluminium tube on the right has the same OD as the ITBs and only slightly smaller ID - close enough to die grind to match.

The only missing part is a big aluminium face plate to bolt to the head, but I will also need to extend the linkage arms … and then make the manifold…

Spac

Forgot this bit from yesterday…

Spare wheel mount. I talked about the spare stopper being useful in a crash, but it also will prevent the spare being bashed into the back of the navigator’s seat when it is being put back into the car.

Largest and smallest commonly available 15” rally tyres.

Top is 205/65, bottom is 185/60. Phone camera has exaggerated the difference in sizes, but you get the idea.

The 205/65s are the most common, especially if I am buying used, but I am almost certain that they won’t fit in the W201 wheel arches. Specifically, they will rub on the inner wheel arch on the front (behind the headlight).

I will be using 185/65s if I can get a supply of them - only Hoosier makes them in that size.

Next option is 195/60, but only MRF make this size…

So I am kind of expecting to end up with 195/65s.

This morning was spent getting the material for the rear rollcage legs and making the firewall plate to block the hole where the heater box used to be.

This was procrastination while I avoid making the aluminium rear parcel shelf, which is harder than it would have been if I had thought about it before I welded the cage in.. and will be much harder if I don’t do it before I weld the rear legs in…

Evening edit:

Rear parcel shelf needed raised sections to clear the hinges.

Some windscreen goo seals it up.

Will need to work out how to secure it to the bodyshell, because the potential for rattles is very high.

I think that I will be able to get some screws into the front edge, but there’s no room to drill holes at the rear.

Am tempted to just glue it down with a bunch of Sikaflex, but am not ready to commit. Will also paint it matt or satin black before fitting it to the car.

Firewall cover plate fitted. Will goo it up once the paint is a bit harder.

Very early mock up for the heater unit. I think that I will raise it up a bit, so that it is mounted off the aluminium plate, which should help stop the plate from drumming.

Overall feeling pretty positive about the whole thing. The cage should be finished tomorrow, and maybe I can start refitting the dash and pedal box permanently.

Spac

Cage is so close to being finished… harness bars and one rear door intrusion bar left to go.

Even a 205/65 tyre fits through the gap.

Not so clever part is that I forgot to drill the holes in the fuel pump cover flange before welding the bar in, and now that is going to be a turd of a job.

Tacked the bar to the wheel arch. Not sure if it will do much, but felt like it was the right idea.

So close. The rear legs (top corners of the hoop to the rear wheel arches) were awful to make. Basically, most bars you get one end close (roughly mitred) and lay it in place and work out where & what angle to cut the other end.

In this case, because I had already fitted the diagonals in the hoop, it was very difficult to get the legs anywhere near the right position and I had to sneak up on the cuts very slowly.

I got one to the point that I thought was just a tiny bit long, and then worked on the other leg - so I could shorten the first leg to match the second if I overshot.

Anyhow, when got the second leg right, it was over 30mm shorter than the first! I shortened the first leg to match and suddenly the world was good again…

I also got some contamination in one of the rear V legs. I welded 90% of it just fine, and then the last 10% popped and farted at me and generally made me unhappy. I will grind it back tomorrow, and reweld if needed.

Spac

Not much done today.

With the help of the 11yo (she fits in the boot better than I do), I did get the parcel tray in. Lumps of steel are to hold it down while the sealant dries.

Spac

Cage

Finished.

Well, there’s still a bunch of spatter removal and painting to do, but it is done.

Because the harness bars don’t meet the hoop or diagonals in the same spot, they look entirely uneven/not parallel, but I have checked a dozen different ways and they absolutely are even.

The driver’s harness bar is a tight fit. The hoop is actually getting wider as it goes up to the bottom of the door glass, so it had to be pushed into place with a mallet.

The diagonals intersect slightly to the navigator’s side - about 10 or 12mm over - and now the uneven harness bars make it appear that they intersect about 50mm off to the side. Again, I spent ages convincing myself that I hadn’t screwed it up!

It will probably be impossible to see once everything is back in the interior, and nobody who hasn’t read this will probably ever think to look, but it is one of those things that I needed to fret over for a while…

It owes me about $1500 in materials and consumables. Could have been slightly less if I had been more organised and purchased things in bulk from suppliers in Canberra rather than the overpriced local suppliers, but it would probably still only be $50-100 less.

I started on it 16 days ago, and most days have involved decent hours on the car, mostly (but not exclusively) on the rollcage. Realistically, I would say that I have around 80 hours in the cage, but that could be trimmed down significantly by being more organised with materials and consumables, by not needing to get the roof V remade, and by my cage guy not getting Covid.

There was also a lot of time spent thinking and second guessing myself, that will be minimised next time.

Retail price is around $4500 and up, depending on who you ask, so I guess that I have “paid” myself about $1500/week. Which I am pretty happy with.

Spac

This is how much tube I had left over…

Did hardly anything today. Cold, wet and doctors appointment. I decided not to weld the dash support bar to the rollcage.

Instead, I welded a plate over the hole in the support bar.

Spac

Driver’s false floor almost finished. Still need to cut the hole for the accelerator pedal…. And work out how to install/remove the retaining clip.

Lots of progress on the fuel pump cover too. Both parts were slowed down by my ham-fistedly breaking the good M5 thread tap.

The other tap is badly worn and seems to be cutting maybe 4.8mm threads…

Will buy a new one tomorrow.

Biggest hassle from here is working out how to drill the holes that are obscured by the rollcage members.

I have managed to drill and tap the holes below the rear door intrusion bars, but am less confident about the holes that need to go under the diagonal.

I also got the material to make the intake manifold flange today.

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