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

Floor done. I even got the hole for the pedal right on the first try!

Pleasing:

I will seal up the gaps with some silastic on the final fit.

Fuel pump cover also finished. The three screws on the near-right of the photo are progressively more crooked as they get closer to the hoop. The last one is pretty terrible but I couldn’t come up with a better idea.

The whole panel is curved. I had planned on putting a bend in it, but this is stiff and doesn’t drum/resonate so I will leave it as-is.

Also began gooing up the firewall where the rollcage goes through. It is a messy, crappy job, as predicted.

Evening edit:

Actually putting things back together. Heater unit is rubber mounted. Not exactly sure why, just seemed like the right thing to do.

I was pretty sure that I was going to a pedal box when I did the strut tower bars… The booster scrapes on the way in, but there’s a tiny amount of clearance once it is bolted up.

I wanted to ditch the booster because of the hassles getting useful vacuum from quad throttle bodies, but Petey has offered me the vacuum pump that was in his 240, so I will give that a go.

I also recovered the dashboard. Surprisingly easy job, TBH. I bought this fabric many years ago, and it has been floating around ever since.

As well as hiding the cracks, it should not tend to reflect on the inside of the windscreen.

If everything goes to plan, I will have the dash bolted in tomorrow, ready to begin wiring (which is totally different to saying that I will begin wiring…).

jamesinc

Your work is starting to look quite professional imo

Spac

jamesinc
Your work is starting to look quite professional imo

Thanks!

I am perpetually frustrated by how slowly I am working, but I have both the time and the Ritalin to actually not rush through things, so am making the most of it.

Spac

Dash is in. Bastard of a job because it is squashed between the front legs of the rollcage, so my nicely aligned bolt holes weren’t aligned any more.

It is very secure, partly because the way I cut & rejoined it, mostly because Mercedes.

Glovebox sealed back up, with a plate that was as fiddly to make as you’d expect. It’s actually a fair bit nicer than the photo makes it appear.

Remember how I said the dash was squashed into place? It has opened up the gap between the two fascia panels and now the lower mount doesn’t line up with the hole.

I think that I will ignore the gap, and remake the bracket.

Made a bracket for the oil pressure light. Have since painted it black.

And also fitted the cheap digital clock/thermometer. I am a little concerned that it will be too bright and distracting at night. Will relocate it to somewhere lower if it is.

Spac

Oh so much fun with door latches!

Photo looks pretty benign, but is the end result of a couple of hours of head scratching and plenty of “if this doesn’t work, then I will just pull the latch out of the spare parts car”.

The homemade aluminium lever is the new internal door handle - push it forward (to the right of the photo) and the door opens. I have also functionally disabled the locking mechanism and removed some redundant parts, while also keeping the child lock permanently off.

With a slot cut in the door for the new “handle”.

It all works perfectly!

And the point of this exercise is to make the new aluminium door trim a lot simpler and easier to make.

Hardest part by far was the little cut out around the latch, and then I forgot to take a photo of it…

Plenty of nutserts doesn’t stop it from drumming terribly, and will be insufferable on transport sections. I will sikaflex it to the door after the windows are sorted.

Got the latch sorted on the rear driver’s side door, but didn’t have the material to make a trim (and wouldn’t have had the time anyway).

Bigger slot on this side to make refitting the latch significantly easier.

I will do something more conventional for the front doors (that are actually likely to be opened from the inside), but making sure that they don’t rattle will be a challenge.

Quick little bracket for the lower part of the dash. Have to make another one for the other side tomorrow.

How the dash is looking. All of the panels, the glovebox and lower section will have to come out for the wiring, but this is good for my motivation!

I am going to need a second fuse box. Basically, there will be a fuse box for everything that is on when the ignition is on, and a fusebox for everything else.

I already own a second one, so it will just be a matter of mounting it. I think that I will remake the blue bracket longer, and have it tie also mount to the top of the transmission tunnel.

Spac

Intake manifold flange plate…

But lest anyone think that it “just happened”…

And I still didn’t get it all spot on, note the elongated hole….

It really was quite the hedfuk. I was paranoid about the two dowels, but they actually made life much easier.

Essentially, I used the outside surface of the 11.0mm dowels as the reference point, and broke everything into vertical and horizontal planes.

This made getting the top four bolt holes quite easy: I knew they’re all in a straight line, and it was relatively easy to measure the distances between them.

I definitely made my life more difficult by not being confident enough to mark everything out at once, because then I had to use edges rather than the previously marked centres… but I was learning as I went, so I will know for next time.

For the three lower, rear holes that are co-linear, I have some 8mm bolts with 11mm shoulders on them, so I bolted them into place to give me a known reference to the centre of the holes. Then I could measure the vertical and horizontal distances from the dowels and it was relatively easy.

The front two holes are not co-linear with any of the other holes. The lower, more rearward of the two wasn’t too tricky once I worked out how: I used the three holes behind it as a reference by laying a ruler on top of the bolts, and measuring the horizontal distance between the rogue bolt and the others.

I then used a second ruler laid parallel with the first and measured the vertical distance between the two rulers.

The forward-most bolt was a turd to get to. I marked off the vertical distance from the bottom of the dowels and that was OK.

For the horizontal distance, I referenced the not-perfectly circular port, and was close… but ballsed it up by about 1.5mm…. Hence the elongated hole.

Spac

Dummied up the throttle bodies. Looks like replacing the oil filter will not be obstructed, which is nice.

Started getting my head around the airbox.

Thought is that I turn this into a complete box, and feed air in from the bottom (blue texta) from an air filter where the green blob is, via a hole in the dummy firewall (red blob).

The box is 9-litres if I complete what is there, but it will lose two or three litres when the corners are trimmed down so the bonnet can close.

I have heard that you want the airbox to be ten times the volume of one cylinder (so 5.5 litres in this case). I don’t know if this is a hard-and-fast rule or a good idea or what.

I can make this larger, by pushing the back wall of the airbox closer to the motor.

If anyone has any input on this, then I would be interested to hear it!

Bit of fiddling around with the fuel lines. Mostly just trying to work out if the braided line was long enough (the supply is, not sure about the return).

Space is tight around the front corner of the seat, so I will weld a short length of the yellow tube into the original seat mount.

And then mounting the fuel filter in the box. I am going to need to fit a banjo fitting to the outlet of the pump, and then loop a flexible hose to the inlet of the filter.

All of this was because I wanted to work out where to put the battery, washer bottle, catch can and vacuum pump on the shelf between the two firewalls.

Made the second lower dash support bracket ridiculously over complicated. I tried to make sure that it wouldn’t get in the way of my foot, but it sort of got ugly and I was too stubborn to start again…

This is the photo I meant to post last night, of the dash with the glovebox lid installed (loosely).

Spac

A solid day’s work on making new driver’s seat mounts.

Short version of a long story is that I wanted to lower the seat and move it to the left.

So I bought some 100x100x6 aluminium angle, and here we are… I had to relocate the outer rear mounting hole inboard, which is where most of the time/brain power went.

The square section tube must have a crush tube in it, and this was a lot more difficult to achieve when it was already welded into the car. I ended up welding a “rod joiner” into the SHS and then welding a 6mm plate over the top. Then the bolt goes all the way through the SHS and there’s a nyloc nut on the bottom.

It isn’t 100% what the rules specify, but it is better/stronger.

The left hand mount is not quite finished because I still need to trim down a couple of bits, but close enough.

The old black steel mounts weigh 1kg each, these are 1.2kg each. For the increase in strength and stiffness, along with the better ergonomics, it’s probably the best 400grams I could put in the car.

Also welded in the tube for the fuel hose to run through on the nav’s side, but forgot to take a photo.

And spent some time working out where the harness lap belt mounts need to go. Apart from the driver’s outer mount, they are all going to suck.

On the navigator’s side, the seat being mounted almost directly onto the floor makes the adjuster want to be right where the harness passes through the seat. This means that I have to mount them to the floor (where they can be damaged by rocks).

I am considering raising the nav’s seat by maybe 20mm if that is enough to avoid that problem.

On the driver’s side, the ideal mounting points are right on top of the SHS lateral mount. For the outboard side, I can put it on the front of the SHS as a decent compromise, but on the inboard side, it needs to go behind the square section which compromises the angle (but still within the acceptable range).

Spac

In today’s episode of how to make something simple into something complicated…

This is an RX7 aluminium jack that were the old hotness for rally cars. This one came with the Daewoo.

I spent the morning modifying it: Bigger, thicker base plate, plus the top modified to fit into the W201 jacking point and a (possibly redundant) load spreading plate.

Brackets are to be welded to the spare wheel mount to locate it in the car. Put the jack into place, wind it up into the hole and it is nice and secure.

Was very happy with how it all went.

And then, on a whim, I realised that I had wasted the entire morning! ?

This is the standard W201 jack…

That said, I am thinking that the Mercedes jack is going to be a turd to mount to the car, and they are a shit to use.

More thinking required.

After that screw up, I tried something easy: block off plate for the hole the AC drier lives in. (This is behind the LH headlight).

Also the photos of the fuel hose tube from yesterday.

Stays on the driving lights. Based on $5 Bunnings balustrade turnbuckles. They are offset outward in an attempt to brace the lights in both planes. I will buy another pair of turnbuckles when I am next near Bunnings, and run them to the lower pair of lights roughly parallel to these turnbuckles.

Hooked up the shifter linkages and discovered that the shift lever hits the fusebox in 1st, 3rd and 5th gears.

Ok, so the fusebox has to move. This solves my question “where do I put the UHF?”. AMSAG rallies demand a UHF radio, so this is better than on the side side of the transmission tunnel like I had kind of been assuming that it would end up…

Pretty happy with how it went together.

The gear lever is too short, so I added some extra length. Took some resolve to cut into a super-rare Mercedes manual shifter …

Forgot to take photos of the process, but I put some thread on the stub, wound down a rod joiner and tack welded it in place, and then welded most of a bolt to the top section of the original lever.

Photo also shows the very beginnings of the hydraulic handbrake lever.

I also finished the driver’s seat mount, but didn’t bother with photos because it looks the same as it did yesterday.

But it does allow me to stew over the location of the belt mounts.

Spac

I went with Plan A on the jack.

The threaded stud sticking up through the jack’s base plate is a bolt in the car’s floor, which locates the base of the jack and (more importantly) blocks the hole I put in the floor when I was overly enthusiastic with the spot weld drill…

It can also be used as a secondary way of securing the jack if I encounter a zealous scrutineer at any stage…

Handbrake progress.

The handbrake master cylinder will be mounted on the rearward end of the yellow tube, out of the way.

Gearlever is in 5th gear here, so plenty of room, but it does suggest that I will benefit from extending the arms on the bottom of the shifter to make it a shorter throw.

That’s all for today: a long time mate came over for a visit and we spent most of the day catching up and generally talking crap.

Spac

Didn’t have a gulag at hand, so had to use spare child labour in the garage today.

He’s cutting out the plates for the harness mounts.

Got five made, and three of them welded into the car. The other two have to wait until CAMS gets their shit together: they updated the harness regs for 2022 to give much needed flexibility in the location for the mounting points for the crotch straps, but now the link goes to the 2021 regulations.

This one was a PITA, as predicted.

Seems to have worked out OK, though.

Also began on the navigator’s footrest, but it is boring, so no photo until it becomes more interesting.

Spac

Handbrake mounts done. Fitting everything in around everything else reminds you that these are not large cars - somewhere around the size of a 1600 or 180B Inside.

First photo is the dummy fit, second is welded in.

Angling it all inward at the back, gives me more elbow room if I get into making pizzas mid-stage.

The master cylinder mount probably deserves some explanation. If is based on a Chinabay kit that I somehow ended up with, but I have turned the bracket around and shortened it.

Last time I had a hydro (the 164 in 2007!), some scrutineers would demand a cover over the lines, so I have also drilled some holes (blue arrows) to allow a cover to be fitted.

I chose to weld it to the bodyshell, against my habit of bolting everything in. The logic is that it weighs the same, but a welded part contributes more to bodyshell stiffness/strength. Between this bracket, the factory handbrake mount, seat mounts, harness mounts, original seatbelt mounts and the centre bearing mount underneath, this is now a very strong part of the car.

Finished the mounts for the navigator’s footrest (still boring).

And primer for the other bits.

I am going to add some tags from the rollcage to the upper seatbelt mounts on the B-pillar, and I think that will be the last of the welding inside the car.

oh… except for the crotch strap mounts. I rang CAMS this morning and the technical guy was immediately defensive and stroppy, and ended up being virtually no help. I think that I am going to just follow the shitty old/current/2021 rules and have it irritate me every time I think about it.

AshDVS

Classic CAMS. Genuinely the most unhelpful and unprofessional governing body you could imagine. Those phonecalls are no fun, you genuinely get a surprise in the event that you speak with someone reasonably competent.

Spac

Went down to Eden for the Bega rally, servicing for Petey and El Wifeo in the Subaru, hence no Mercedes updates.

Today, I added the mounting points for the harness crotch straps, and moved the nav’s left lap strap mount down and a bit backward.

Welding looks absolutely terrible, but is actually ok IRL.

Made and fitted the mounts for the wheel brace (well, breaker bar).

Phone camera refused to show it, but there’s a spring in the tube, tack-welded to the base plate. The idea is that it will stop the socket rattling. It will still need some foam to ensure that it doesn’t rattle.

Began on the last part of the rollcage - the braces that join the cage to the upper seat belt mounts ….

Last photo /\ shows it boxed in. I have since ground back the welds, and it is looking really good.

Having said that the mounts to the B pillar are the last part of the cage… I have been considering adding short vertical supports from the middle of the intrusion bars down to the floor/seat mount.

Quick dummy fit of the “stuff”.

Helmet net is just visible behind the harness bar. I think that I will move it to the boot. The over-arching idea is to keep as much weight as possible within the wheel footprint - including keeping the boot completely empty.

Obviously, the helmets won’t be in the boot in a rally stage, so I think that the trivial weight of the helmet net itself can be forgiven.

There’s also a tool roll that still needs to find a place to live. Will most likely end up on the floor behind one of the seats - if I put it behind the driver’s seat, I can strap it to the rear lateral seat mount.

Spac

Things…

Made the extra mount for the navigator’s side (ignore the next photo, it is a repeat of the driver’s side).

/\ This photo taken immediately before tacking the there pieces together.

Tacked together, waiting to be fully welded. \/

Finished and pretty vs almost finished.

Big, lumpy welds on a fairly aggressive V are to ensure plenty of penetration to allow the edge to be radiused without losing strength.

The bracket has to fit over this boss, hence the second 5mm washer, with a 14mm hole, rather than the 7/16” hole that is in the rest of the bracket.

Honestly, I significantly over-complicated all of this part. A 3mm thick piece of plate bend into a shallow U section and welded to the B-pillar would work just as well for far less effort, but I wanted to see if I could do it the way I wanted.

Being so close to heads/helmets means that I really didn’t want any sharp edges, and this seemed like a good compromise on the weight/strength/stiffness balance.

Anyway, I am happy with how it all worked out.

I decided to add in the extra mounts from the floor to the intrusion bars. This is the navigator’s side.

…. and this is the driver’s side (not sure how I took this photo so badly).

I welded some counterplates to floor under the nav’s seat. They could be simply clamped between the seat mount and the floor, but I chose to weld them to make life easier when things are pulled apart.

They could also be thinner, but I chose 5mm to raise the seat slightly, and tilt it inward so the seat doesn’t touch the B pillar. The rear one is angled simply because it fits more nicely. I finally managed so reasonably pretty welds to the floor, despite the big difference in thickness of the two materials.

And, a fortnight after I declared that the cage was finished, I think that the cage is actually finished.

Still a couple of niggles that I might yet succumb to “fixing”, but definitely nothing important.

This big ugly thing arrived on the weekend: the vacuum pump for the brake booster. Will look into mounting it tomorrow.

Philia_Bear

Spac
Things…
Made the extra mount for the navigator’s side (ignore the next photo, it is a repeat of the driver’s side).
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/VMYINO35H82L/2061828e-cae8-4d88-acd6-4a58ed786081.jpeg
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/CSM5H8DJNLIX/8f62d5ee-85e3-4844-909c-1aca5fef2142.jpeg
/\ This photo taken immediately before tacking the there pieces together.
Tacked together, waiting to be fully welded. \/
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/UMXSABLF5G6F/dc0c4faa-d09d-4c94-9966-6fb763a617db.jpeg
Finished and pretty vs almost finished.
Big, lumpy welds on a fairly aggressive V are to ensure plenty of penetration to allow the edge to be radiused without losing strength.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/U65V2RVSF0S4/bddc17df-b943-446d-a3f6-ec7b1e650a7d.jpeg
The bracket has to fit over this boss, hence the second 5mm washer, with a 14mm hole, rather than the 7/16” hole that is in the rest of the bracket.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/4UMKDCNR9F2T/41b442a9-06d4-4fbe-9e32-6be039f64d7c.jpeg
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/66JTW1XBGOLX/8350bec8-1de1-4896-8779-c1f58e769a72.jpeg
Honestly, I significantly over-complicated all of this part. A 3mm thick piece of plate bend into a shallow U section and welded to the B-pillar would work just as well for far less effort, but I wanted to see if I could do it the way I wanted.
Being so close to heads/helmets means that I really didn’t want any sharp edges, and this seemed like a good compromise on the weight/strength/stiffness balance.
Anyway, I am happy with how it all worked out.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/XR64ODED916A/a804d863-7965-4d4c-b8a6-20158f646a31.jpeg
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/QBQHEVAF44KG/c71f0121-7e21-43b2-873e-f63cfad07fa4.jpeg
I decided to add in the extra mounts from the floor to the intrusion bars. This is the navigator’s side.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/1K7TVCLQ133K/bff126d9-0aeb-4d23-912d-ba8d92e48ef8.jpeg
…. and this is the driver’s side (not sure how I took this photo so badly).
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/O4NYD7ZPU3GY/8dc711b6-332b-4507-8ac3-929e6c138eb2.jpeg
I welded some counterplates to floor under the nav’s seat. They could be simply clamped between the seat mount and the floor, but I chose to weld them to make life easier when things are pulled apart.
They could also be thinner, but I chose 5mm to raise the seat slightly, and tilt it inward so the seat doesn’t touch the B pillar. The rear one is angled simply because it fits more nicely. I finally managed so reasonably pretty welds to the floor, despite the big difference in thickness of the two materials.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/GZDMW7S02JCB/8d48fe9c-c69a-4559-8321-7d319ce3f733.jpeg
.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/O1WPU79MSND1/eedaf26f-e212-4bba-8afd-6fcaba51f1df.jpeg
And, a fortnight after I declared that the cage was finished, I think that the cage is actually finished.
Still a couple of niggles that I might yet succumb to “fixing”, but definitely nothing important.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/IB2OVEV2UKDV/2a2c8783-e623-47b1-84fd-a331fa624a66.jpeg
.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/1BXIIO9DS80H/12983484-7849-483f-8f99-c3d53ca73c3a.jpeg
This big ugly thing arrived on the weekend: the vacuum pump for the brake booster. Will look into mounting it tomorrow.
https://cdn.ozvolvo.org/uploads/4APY8SN28LY1/4a70b907-4f46-42bf-adc2-3cb7252b9e81.jpeg

Re the vac pump... why it over one of the super cheap and simple p1 12v units?

Spac

With the benefit of hindsight, there’s a couple of improvements to be had.

I slightly messed up the exact location of the whole cage. I would have been better off pushing the front legs up and rearward more. This is why the hoop is slightly off centre.

I was trying to keep it all as far forward as possible, and only realised there was a better option after it was too late. If I had done it the better way, the legs would be about 10mm higher and 10mm further back. This would have given me more head room (navigator has plenty) and kept the legs closer to the A-pillars.

I would like the hoop to be wider, particularly at the top, but NBD. It still fits the car better than most cages do (I spent a lot of time looking at cages over the weekend!).

The rear legs would be nicer if they were mounted wider at the top, as per the blue line. I did them this way because I was thinking that having them angled a bit would make the hoop more capable of resisting a sideways load at the top, but obviously the inverted V does this much better than slightly angled legs ever could.

I should have put more effort into the gussets at the bottom of the Sainz bars. They are perfectly functional (ie: hardly at all), but could/should be a lot nicer to look at.

The paint is probably my biggest mistake. I was right to paint the high up parts when I could get to them (before actually welding the cage into place), but then I got carried away. Then every time I have gone near it with new paint/primer, it has reacted like it has had brake fluid sitting on it… Not sure exactly why, but it looks like crap. I can sand it down no problem, but then it will happen when I reapply the next lot of primer.

I will buy a new welder before I build the next cage. My current one does the job fine, but is a POS compared to the newer inverter welders. This is particularly noticeable when starting a weld, but also in the way it fluctuates depending on the load on the local power grid.

Spac

Philia_Bear
https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/comment/206457#Comment_206457
Re the vac pump... why it over one of the super cheap and simple p1 12v units?

Because it was free.

Edit: Although, now that I look at what the much smaller ones are worth or Ebay, it is probably worth the $53 for the weight saving.

Philia_Bear

Spac
https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/comment/206460#Comment_206460
Because it was free.
Edit: Although, now that I look at what the much smaller ones are worth or Ebay, it is probably worth the $53 for the weight saving.

I'll give you a spare P1 unit for free... it works stupid well and its stupid simple

Side note... use some 100mm PVC pipe with 2 end caps and some fittings to make a stupid light and cheap tank so you have reserve if the pump fails mid run

Spac

Today was mostly spent going and getting the aluminium for the door trims and seat mounts.

Two thumbs up for both Fabworx and Custom Chant in Goulburn.

Anyway, because the seat bolts are hard to get to behind the rollcage, I want to put the bolts in from the bottom. Here’s my ugly captive nuts.

Now I need to work out a compromise between keeping the bolt heads protected and scrutineers happy.

Fire extinguishers mounted. Small job but it needed to be done … and now it is.

You now how I was talking about how the cage making the seat bolts hard to get to… Well, I made the driver’s side bolt damn difficult to get to by adding the vertical mount… Oh well.

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