A much needed update

So, as always, I've been working on the car--although not as often now that school has started up again. I finally got the body as straight as I'm gonna get it, I think. There is this one dent that would be pretty much obscured by the front bumper that I was just going to ignore, but now I kinda wanna fix it. I tried hammering it out for a bit tonight, but didn't have much luck. ANYWAY, other than that, things look good. I still have to hang the replacement door on the back passenger side. Oh yeah! I haven't told you. I went down to Tennessee a few weeks ago to pick up a back seat and replacement door, along with a few other incidental goodies, like a map pocket and rear view mirror. Thing is the door is beige, so I have to repaint it completely, inside and out. Plus, it's from a 300D, which has power windows, so I have to pull the regulator/motor and refit the door with the manual mechanisms. I don't think that's gonna be too hard, and I'm actually half-way there.

My main focus this weekend was to get all the minor imperfections out of the sheet metal so that I could do my first coat of high-build primer. Mission accomplished:

Before:






After:






Now, just gotta block sand at 400 grit, re-prime, then do it again at 400 and then 600. Ugh. Oh yeah, and paint the trunk, replace 3 door seals, paint the jambs and around the trunk seal, prime, paint and hang the new door, clean sand and paint the under side of the hood, paint the under side of the trunk lid, replace windshield and back windows seals (and treat any rust around the edges under the rubber), replace the sunroof seals, finish treating the interior floor with sound proofing, replace the carpet, fix an 8 inch tear in the headliner, put a dash cover on, and probably a few other things that I'm not thinking of right now. Oh! Almost forgot about having the rust cut out and the new piece welded into the passenger side quarter panel. So, I'm practically done.

Getting closer

Today I'll just post a few pictures of the current status of the car, and then a note on stripping. Paint. Stripping paint. (What kind of blog do you think this is?) I want to try to cover questions that I had before I started and put in my two cents about what I've found.

First the pictures. If you click on the pictures, you can see a larger one. If you look closely at the first one, you'll see some waviness along the center ridge where the trim attaches. I worked SO much on this panel and still didn't manage to get that line completely straight. I may have to go for outside help...

A closer look at the rust that has to be cut out and replaced:

What I did today:

What's left to strip:

Now a few words about how I've been stripping paint. Before I started, I researched quite a bit. I decided on using aircraft stripper because sanding and or grinding seemed like it would take too long. I looked into soda blasting, and Eastwood sells a unit for around $250, which is addition to your compressor. I didn't want to spend that extra money, so I bought some aircraft stripper. I actually did the whole replacement decklid that way. It takes several applications and is messy. Not to mention, you DO NOT want to get any on your skin. You'll feel it within seconds! Also, it's around $25-$30 per gallon. I think I used close to a half gallon just on the trunk. It would've gotten expensive. I really don't recommend it.

During a trip to Home Depot, I was looking at power tools and ended up getting a Ryobi 4.5 inch angle grinder that came with a sanding disk, a grinding disk, and a stripping disk, all for $39. Not too bad. I think it's a 11,000 RPM one. I tried the stripping disk on the paint and never looked back. Works quite well, and probably about as fast as a home soda blasting kit, although not as friendly to aluminum trim pieces, so be careful! The replacement disks are about $8 or $9, and I think I'll end up using around 6 of them. I've used some aircraft stripper to get into small places that I couldn't get to with the disk and it's very messy. Not to mention you don't want any hanging around only bubble up through your nice new paint later on. That stuff is powerful.

In spite of its relative effectiveness, it still takes a bit of work to do a whole panel with a stripping disk. And it gets paint and metal dust all over you. Here's how I gear up for a stripping session:

So, here are the grinder attachments I've been using. The DeWalt wire wheel on the left has been good for tighter spaces. It's actually quite heavy wire which doesn't work as well because you've got to apply more pressure to get all of the bristles to contact well, which can't be good for the sheet metal. The stripping disk I've been using is made by Norton, pictured on the right.

Regular flat shaped wire wheels also work very well on paint, and are particularly effective on surface rust. The stripping disc doesn't really remove rust as well, but it will some. Here's the remnant of the one that came with my grinder:

I'm glad I kept it because it came in handy today. Since it's so small, I'm able to get it into creases that nothing else would touch. They look like this when new:

I haven't been able to find a new one that has a center hole big enough to fit my grinder. There are ones that will fit a drill, which will work in a pinch, but drills just don't have the RPMs to be very effective. At least mine doesn't. Plus the battery runs out in about 5 minutes!

Well, I think I've more or less covered it. Hope this helps someone out there!

Pressing Forward

The saga continues. Slowly but surely. At this point I've got 3/4 of the car in the first coat of primer. That is, a coat of the first primer. If I haven't said before, I'm doing a coat of self-etching primer that is meant to counteract any surface rust before going on to the application of regular high-build urethane primer that can be sanded. This is necessary because I'm not in a position to IMMEDIATELY apply primer after stripping the paint. And since rust begins to form within minutes, it's necessary for me to apply the self-etching primer first.

ANYWAY, I only have the fenders and hood to strip paint off of. Sorry, that is, I only have the fenders and hood from which to strip paint. Better. At that point, I'll have the whole car in s.e. primer. I still need to finish the floor pan by giving it a final coat of black POR-15. I also need to do some final, small applications of body filler in the trunk, and it should be ready to paint. Going to do a semi-gloss black inside. Then I think I'll have to buy my paint (I'm thinking big...thinking Glasurit. But we'll see. It's pricey.) The reason I need to get the paint now is so that I can paint around the rim of the trunk before putting the seal in place. I can't wait to get that on there so I can seal the trunk to protect it from water. But also because the trunk lid bangs every time I hit a bump in the thing.

Ugh, that reminds me: since I used the trunk lid from a '72 200D, I need to fill the existing holes where the model decal mounts, as well as the chrome handle because they're in the wrong places. Obviously, I have a "240D" badge and not a "220 DIESEL" badge. Then the handle is much longer on the 240D than it was on the 220D. One final note about the lid: I put a coat of black POR-15 over the area that contacts the hinges. That's an obvious place for paint to get scratched (metal on metal) which would then be a feast for water. So the rock hard finish of POR-15 should take care of that nicely. I'm also going to do that along the rain gutters on either side of the roof. Since the aluminum trim clamps right over the lip, it's more opportunity for metal-on-metal scratching. Can't have rust forming there.

Body work hasn't been the only thing I've done. I also just put on new brake discs and pads all around. Mmmm...it stops quite nicely now. (I mean, not as nicely as my 420SEL used to, but then again, no car I've ever driven has had brakes like that.)

I will get some pictures up in the next few days...ideally after it's all in primer. 'Til then.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

I mean in general. At least that's what they say. Not this time, really. Nothing bad, just I wish I could say more than I have to say. On the up side, things are starting to feel like they're moving forward. The bad part is that it's taken forever to get to this. The culprit is my driver's side quarter panel that was featured previously. The one with all the filler on it. I was working on straightening it the right way and envisioned a beautifully straight panel with almost no filler. But it was not to be so. Don't get me wrong, there's A LOT less filler than there was before. A lot. But I also don't have it perfect either. Close, but not perfect. I don't think I can get it perfect. Maybe you have to do what the guy did that fixed it before in order to have perfect lines. I just don't know which is worse, slightly less than perfect lines yet still some exposed metal, or almost a 1/4 inch of filler. Well, I'm gonna get some primer on it and see how the lines look then. It's hard to tell when it looks like a holstein cow. (That's the black and white one in dairies, for those of you not raised in farming country). Observe:




That's where I've been spending most of my free time for the last...two weeks? More? I don't rightly know. I've kind of lost track of time. And sorry for the proximity of my mug in the second shot. I should've used a wider angle lens, but that would have involved going into the house. (Does my face look fat? I always feel like it looks fat in pictures. And I'm a pretty skinny guy, for those of you who don't know me).

So, aside from the cursed (read poetically: 'kərsid) quarter panel, I've now got all the paint removed from the whole rear and the other quarter panel. I've also got the inside of the trunk sanded and ready for some filler to smooth out the fiberglass cloth patches that cover the rust holes. Speaking of filler (I must smell like it all the time. It has a distinct chemical smell), the other quarter panel is perfectly straight apart from the rust at the very bottom back (which will be cut out and replaced). Or so I thought. I discovered a small patch of filler about 8x8 inches that I COULDN'T just leave in place. I HAD to remove it to see WHY they had put it there, and if there was something awful underneath. There wasn't. Just a small dent that's placed just inconveniently enough that you can't really get a dolly behind it to hammer it out (due to the wheel well inside the trunk). But that didn't stop me from trying. To make a long story short, it's got its first coat of filler back on it. Another one should level it out. I just can't leave well enough alone.

What else? Um...nothing, really. See, I told you there wasn't much to report. All this time without posting and this is all I can give you. It's because I've been spending SOOO much time on that quarter panel. My neighbors must be wondering why I'm always sitting in the same place on the curb. Which reminds me...the last few days people have been driving by, some of whom I've never noticed before, and are stopping to ask how it's going and give me words of encouragement. I've become acquainted with probably 8 to 10 people in the neighborhood because they always see me out there. Apparently I've got my head down a lot so I haven't seen all of them before this week. Some I see often, usually older men, who drive by and like to stop and chat about it. Most have some advice to give, a story about an old car they restored, or their uncle or their nephew or son, etc. It's pretty funny. It's like I have my own cheering section.

More to come...

That title reminds me of the old Tonight Show commercial breaks when Johnny Carson still was hosting. There was always some little picture or drawing of something a bit strange or funny that said "More to come."

Anyway, there is more to come. I've been a bit lazy about posting, but I have been working on the car. Mainly getting the aforementioned quarter panel straightened out. There will be pics and details shortly...stay tuned.

Over and out.

OH! And happy birthday dad and Susan!

Worth it? I think so.

A lot can happen in 33 years. That's plenty of time for a car to become less than perfect. Far less. Things get bent, corroded and just plain dirty. I mean really dirty. Not to mention the dumb things that previous owners have done. I once had a '77 Wagoneer that had really been put through the ringer. Someone had cut the wiring harness off right at the firewall. Nothing electrical worked in the dash. On top of that, it had something like 4 or 5 BAD paint jobs, the last of which was grey latex paint that had been applied with a brush (there were brush marks). But it was still cool. At least I liked it. The thing is, when you come into contact with a car after most of its life (in my Benz's case 33 years) has gone by, it's easy to look at it and think that that's how it is. That's just the way this car is. It's pretty hard to picture it as being anything else. Meanwhile it's wishing it could tell you about the day it rolled of the assembly line so that you could picture it.

Because of this, I find that I look at things and somehow just think that they're part of the car. Today as I was prepping the floor board for rust patching, I got under the front fender to clean off around the rust holes and saw just how dirty it was under there. Now, I've been under there before. Many times. I put new shocks on the car when I got it. I've rotated tires. I've re-packed the front wheel bearings. Each time I've been under there I've undoubtably seen the years and years worth of caked on dirt. I think I thought it was the texture of the undercoating. I don't know. But today I took a wire brush to it and it sure looks different. Now I see little surface rust spots that will need to be treated. The whole wheel well will need to be repainted. Yet another example of my ever-expanding project. But it'll be worth it. My car's gonna look so good when I'm done.

Sure, I've thought about just getting a nicer car that I wouldn't have to do the work on. More than once. Wouldn't it be nice to just start over with another car that looks better than mine does, especially compared to how it looks now! But that car will have problems too. When I get to looking a little closer, they'll be there, and I'll have to deal with them or they'll just get worse. They won't be the same as the ones I'm dealing with now maybe, but they'll be there. Plus I just really like my car. It was love at first sight.

So, I'm gonna stick it out with my '75 240D 3.0. Yeah, it's given me problems in the past and continues to at times. But I've got so much time already invested in it, and the payoff's gonna be worth it. Plus we get along pretty well...

Yet more to fix - or - The Case of the Shrinking Quarter Panel

Wherein our hero heaps more work upon himself.

Today started (as far as my car is concerned) with a call to the good folks at POR-15. That's PEE OOH ARR fifteen, Kevin. (Kevin is the guy at the paint store who was nice enough to give me a 90 minute class on paint and body work which went right up to closing time and he had to rush to get to his second job. The next time I saw him, he indirectly tried to blame ME for making him late. I told him that I was sorry that he was late and that I wish that he had told me that he needed to go, which, in my language means "Don't try to push it off on me just because YOU didn't pay attention to the clock KEVIN." I figure you catch more flies with honey and I like for people to realize their own errors most of the time. I think that he soon did, actually. Plus, he didn't have to help me in the first place. Thanks, Kevin. Anyway, he once corrected me when I said "P.O.R. fifteen" with "por" like "pour" fifteen. When I called customer support today, the message said, "Thank you for calling PEE OOH ARR 15". Yes! Life's small victories. See, I figured it was an acronym for something like "pisses off rust" or possibly (work with me here) "prity ossum rustinhibitor", which would, of course, be thought of by someone with terrible spelling for common words but strangely capable with bigger words like "inhibitor". Then the "15" part of course would mean that it took them 15 formulas to get it right.) That's the end of my parenthetical statement (yes I know I put parentheses within the parentheses). Are those of you who don't know me personally beginning to get a sense of how my mind works? Are those of you that do knowingly rolling your eyes?

ANYWAY, Dave or Mark or whatever his name was from POR-15 responded to my e-mail and told me to call him and he would tell me "exactly what to do". My problem was that I had put the fiberglass cloth over the holes and then done three coats of paint over it. I thought that the fiberglass cloth would sort of become one with the paint and make a beautiful, seamless cover over the hole. Oh, but it was not so. The fiberglass stayed nice and fibery leaving an obvious patch. I asked if maybe it could be sanded. "No" was the answer. That paint just sets up too hard to be sanded very easily. Dave or Mark or whatever then said that if it had been him, he would've just put two coats of paint over it. Three was probably too much. He seemed pretty interested to hear that THE INSTRUCTIONS SPECIFICALLY TOLD ME TO PUT THREE COATS ON IT. His honest suggestion to me, which was all that he could offer, was to use body filler over the fiberglass to smooth it out. Which would mean that I would just have a smooth raised patch, not one that's nice and flush with the surrounding sheet metal. Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe for them to know what they were doing and write the instructions accordingly. Maybe to give me an idea of what the end result would be so that I could modify my approach.

Well, I DID sand it, and it seems like that is going to work okay. I'm just going to have to sand a lot.

Moving on...since I had my grinder out to try grinding the fiberglass (which it did--into oblivion), I thought I'd start to take some of the primer/paint off of the quarter panel that I had repaired last year. Just to see what I was dealing with. As it turns out, there was a whole lot of filler on it. See for yourself:




If you take a close look at the second photo, you can see sedimentary layers, as it were. FIVE layers of filler. I'd say that it was about 3/16" thick. You see, the guy who did that work, who will remain nameless, got to working on my car and realized that the pre-arranged price/trade we had worked out was not going to be worth the amount of effort it would take to do the job right. So, he pulled out the bulk of the dent in the quarter and the door in front of it (which were pretty well smashed in by some drunken idiot who proceeded to leave the scene) and then began to trowel on the filler. He should be a sculptor. Or a mason (as in brick layer, not the brotherhood to which many highly-revered people from the past have belonged. I just saw a Masonic sticker on a car the other day. Still going strong, I suppose. Maybe I'll look into it. Perhaps I could make some connections and start getting photography gigs or deals on auto paint).

So, I took ALL of the filler off that panel and had a look. It's pretty bumpy in places. So I tried my hand at hammer and dollying it in order to shrink the metal. Since sheet metal has a "memory" of how it was originally pressed, it wants to snap back into place. If you put a dent in metal, you are stretching it. Therefore, it needs to be shrunk. This is done by tapping with a hammer on one side and a heavy, slightly convex piece of metal (the dolly) on the other side. You work around the dent and shrink the metal by tapping it. There was a pretty noticeable low-spot about 8" wide by 10" long. I am happy to say that I actually got it close to snapping back! I had to quit coz it was getting late and I don't think neighbors love to hear a hammer on sheet metal at all, much less after dark. Plus I wouldn't be able to see.

So, it'll take some doing, but I'll get it done right. It'll just take me til fall of 2010.