Crank, no start....

[bobins]

I was thinking prices would start at £5k and only go upwards
Annoyingly - the Mrs works for a large bodywork repair company, but they rarely take on private work

[mickthemaverick]

It might be worth asking Richard Hammond's The Smallest Cog for a quote. It is the type of car they are interested in. If they can make a TV episode out of it you might get a discount!!

[Rp0thejester]

A wrap might work out cheaper.

[mickthemaverick]

I'm certain it would Ryan but that is not the done thing for a car like this, restoring originality has to be the way if you want to preserve and maybe even enhance the value so that eventually it might cover its own costs!

[mickthemaverick]

I have just discovered there is an email enquiry form on the Smallest Cog website so nothing to lose really bobins, you can find it here, go on you know you want to

[bobins]

Only two problems I can see with contacting them at the moment:
1. I can't justify the cost of a full respray just yet.
2. See point 1 above.

[bobins]

A little more work on 'Helga' today....

A bit of upholstery cleaning with some Gliptone cleaner - by 'eck, it needed it Much more to do though.
I fitted the new boot struts which was easy enough. The originals were made by Stabilus but with the all important 3 pointed star printed on them. The repalcements I fitted were also made by Stabilus but without the 3 pointed star printed on them. They were half the price of the 'genuine' Merceds ones

Honest, there's a boot strut in this photo - own work

There's also another one in this photo - own work

I also fettled the centre 'glasses compartment' cubby box on the dashboard so it shuts - and stays shut - now. Not a perfect job, but an improvement on what it was. No photos of the work involved as it involved grease and swearing and filing. At some point in the past someone had forced the cubby box (it's lockable) and bent bits of its mechanism so it didn't perform as it should. This is the 'before' shot - use your imagination for the 'after' shot

Glasses compartment - own work

I also fitted a replacement Blaupunkt Frankfurt radio. It looks much more period correct, but is bang up to date in specs. It replaced a barely used, but much more 'bling' Kenwood stereo. No photos of the new radio, I'm afraid, but I will add them soon. Anyone want to buy the Kenwood radio ? It's rather nice Specs to follow

[CitroJim]

Excellent

[ekjdm14]

As long as there is no signs of sidewall degradation you should be able to get some miles out of them. Try over pressurising them for an hour or so and then drop back to normal and take it for a run, worked for me on my Delica which had stood for 4 years when I got it.

Late to the party on this one, but the opposite worked for me on an old Rover 214 I had years ago. it'd sat for about the same, 4 or 5 years & I actually dropped the pressures to about 15psi all round and went for a (slow, so as to not overheat them) drive around the town. After maybe 5 miles I reinflated them to spec whilst still warm & continued on with no shakey-shakey to be felt apart from the local roads built-in ones.

[mickthemaverick]

I have just found an alternative route you could take with the restoration bobins:

Spoiler: show

If only............

Details here

[bobins]

How does the softop work on that, Mick ?

[mickthemaverick]

There is a button on the dash and if it starts raining you just press the button and it stops raining!!

[bobins]

Late to the party on this one, but the opposite worked for me on an old Rover 214 I had years ago. it'd sat for about the same, 4 or 5 years & I actually dropped the pressures to about 15psi all round and went for a (slow, so as to not overheat them) drive around the town. After maybe 5 miles I reinflated them to spec whilst still warm & continued on with no shakey-shakey to be felt apart from the local roads built-in ones.

Whilst the ride has improved on mine, I'm not sure if there's still an issue or not as i've not yet come across a smooth enough bit of road to see if it's sorted - the gaps between the potholes on the roads are just too damned short I think I might have to have a rummage underneath to look at the driveline though - I think there's a rubber doughnut on the prop joint and I need to make sure it's still all OK. Any vibration I might be feeling now is at too low a frequency to be tyre related.... I think

[bobins]

There has been progress

I've been doing various more minor and less critical bits to 'Helga' over the last 2 weeks.

I replaced the 6 speakers in the car with some new Focal speakers which required a bit of fabricobbling to get them to fit - the old door ones sit in a specific Mercedes housing so the new ones had to be made to fit, which wasn't too much of a ball-ache, thankfully. Some of the old speakers were not working and they were of a non standard 'ohms' and were wired through the in car amp which is under the back seats - so I've wired the new set of speakers direct in to the new radio via the supplied Focal crossovers and I'm exceedingly happy with the results I could have put a new amp in the boot and wired it all through, but there doesn't seem much point as I've no desire to annoy the neighbours with a too loud car stereo.

Another job on the 'to do' list was the under bonnet insulation pad.
The old under bonnet insulation pad had seen better days..........

Degraded old bonnet insulation pad - own work

Most of it came off with a Henry vacuum cleaner.

Insulation just crumbling away - own work

Fitting the new pad is one of those jobs that is just ripe for misery It requires trim spray to be applied to both the under bonnet and the new bonnet pad..... and not on the car's bodywork You then have to apply the pad perfectly and caress it into position, making sure it fits in all the right places. Somewhat astonishingly, me and my faithful assistant managed to get it fitted perfectly first time

New bonnet pad fitted into position - own work

On to the next task. The air conditioning After previously running a diagnostic session on the climate control unit, it'd shown an erronious temperature on the air temp sensor. This turned out to be a ridiculously simple job - if you don't count having to stand on your head in the passenger footwell. First - locate the sensor plug using stereognosis. Second - pull the sensor out of its housing and unplug it. Third - plug in the new one and shove it back where it came from. Why can't all jobs be like this ?

Air temp sensor replacement - own work

One job done on the aircon.... and another one shows up. Low gas pressure on the diagnostics. I tentatively put some gas in the system using a home top-up bottle, but didn't get very far before it let go on the condenser in the front. Bu88er. Condensers for these are hard to come by, but I did find a very good condition used one for sale.... in Lithuania I paid my money and crossed my fingers and waited, and......... it arrived and it was just as good as in the pictures

See if you can work out the good one and the bad one.

One is good, one less so - own work

Fitting wasn't too much of a drama.... apart from one of the steel pipe unions not wanting to part from its brass connection. A bit of heat and some swearing saw it give in in the end

Onto something different - a bit more fabricobbling was called for to convert the old cassette tape storage rack in the centre console into something more useful. You can buy a genuine Mercedes plastic tub that replaces the cassette (or CD) storage box if you want.... but I'm not prepared to pay just shy of £100 for that pleasure
The cassette box sits between the gear lever and the arm rest.

Centre console cassette box - own work

So with a bit of aluminium that bears a strong resemblance to a door kick plate from Toolstation, I cut 'n' bent up a box to take the place of the cassette thing, and then covered it in black baize cloth.

Fabrication in progress, Cardboard Aided Design template not shown - own work

Put the aluminium bit in the plastic surround and Bob's yer uncle - own work

More cheapskating was required for the headlamp wipers. The old ones no longer resembled rubber wiper blades, and you can buy 'proper' replacement blades for lots of money...... or if you're me you find a cheaper way of doing the job The blades are of a specific construction and design, and no amount of opening up the various wiper blade boxes in Halfords on a Sunday morning would come up with the proper design. Fortuitously, I stumbled across an ebay listing for a genuine Ford Kuga 'Premium' rear wiper blade that showed the correct design - it has a central stiffener running down the spine of the blade rather than the much more common 2 steel spars running down the sides. A few minutes with the Milwaukee and I had 2 replacement wiper blades.

Wiper surgery in progress - own work

The finished result - own work

And finally <cue : drumroll> Success with getting replacement keys. I'd previously enquired at the main dealers and they'd told me "Yeah - maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but one day Mercedes will make some more keys" Plan 'B' required. A bit of trawling on the 'net turned up Banbury Car Keys who reckoned they could do fully functioning 3 button IR + transponder car keys for my car. Woo and/ hoo ! Even better - they could do them by mail order With copious amounts of trepidation, I popped my one and only key in the post on a Monday afternoon. It came back on the Thursday morning...... along with a new 3 button IR + transponder key and a 'standard' boring transponder key as well. Surely it can't be this easy ? I put the key in the ignition and after a few flashes of various lights the car started. A very quick and painless programming of the IR function was needed and there you have it - the main dealers were circumvented and I got 2 keys for the price of one non-existant main dealer key. I'll call that a result.
Andras at Banbury Car Keys gets a definite 'thumbs up' from me

[CitroJim]

Absolutely awesome Robin Fantastic work and a fantastic read