Stroke Eight - '73 Mercedes-Benz 280 Sedan

Last December, just before Christmas, I stumbled on one of my dream cars on local Craigslist. Couldn't pass up the deal, so drove out, put cash on the table, and had a contact tow it back home to Burlington for me. Sat through a snowstorm, and here's how it looked after I dug it out:

Super-minty interior. The carpets are all there, just pulled them up to gauge condition of the floors, which will need some welding work.

Popped in a new coil, distributor cap, and battery, and she fired right up: First Start - Youtube

Sometime in here I dug up a large wad of paperwork from the previous owners--going all the way back to original purchase and service documents from the original owner. Originally bought by Willard Pope, a University of Vermont professor and publisher/editor, who happened to live right here in Burlington, less than two miles from my own place. Purchased from The Automaster in Shelburne, just 4 years after it became Vermont's first Mercedes-Benz dealership.

She sat for awhile after that while I finished school and worked on my 'bagged Saab project. But now, with only a month left before the Wolfsgart show, It's crunchtime to get the old girl back on the road. Jacked her up to start taking tally of what needs to be done.

Pleasantly surprised that front shocks seem newish, as do some of the bushings (tie rod ends).

Current to-do list: -Cut out front floor pans, weld in new sheet metal (already on my shelf) -Drain fuel from tank, purge lines, replace filter, replace pump if needed (already on my shelf) -Pull brakes apart for full cleaning/replacement if necessary. Believe one caliper is sticking. -Brake fluid flush -Oil flush/change. Considering the diesel-soak method, but still nervous about the idea... -Coolant flush/change -Trans/diff oil flush/change -New plugs and correct wires -New tires on OE steelies, or new wheels

At that point, I feel it should be running and driveable. Then it'll be on to carb adjustment/rebuild if necessary.

Even with all the rain we've had lately, I needed to make some progress on the Benz this weekend. My brother went to school for fabrication/autobody, and he has the week off work, so he came up to help me tear into her.

Roommate lent us a canopy to help deter any sudden downpours

So we set about scraping out all the sound deadening from inside the car, and the undercoating from the bottom.

Passenger side:

Driver's side:

Some of these were involved:

After that we went to work with a spot-weld drill so we could pull the pan out of the car. Tedious work for sure. We would have gotten to completely remove at least one pan from the car yesterday had I not decided in a bout of boredom (there's only one drill, and it was my brother's turn) to try and figure out how to remove the fuel tank. I managed to puncture an apparently very dry-rotted fuel line near the tank, which turned out to be quite full. After wasting quite awhile hoping there was only a small amount of gas in it, we just went ahead and dropped the whole tank and emptied the gas into a 5-gallon can. At that point our heads were spinning from the fumes, and we didn't feel like blowing up the car by trying to cut out and weld the sheet metal, so we called it a night. I'll be sending the tank over to a radiator shop to have them steam-clean it. It appears pretty solid, I think being stored with gas in it definitely helped prevent rust.

I scored a set of OEM 15-hole (bottlecap style) aluminum wheels from craigslist, and a free set of Toyo Proxes with oodles of tread left. Had to order longer lug bolts, since the car had steelies originally, but they should arrive later this week.

Nice Car. Nice Work.

Very pretty. I love the first pictures of it in the snow! Very rare to see an old Benz in bright red it seems.

Woo, holy floor pans Batman!

I have to agree, how many came in Bright Red?

Thanks everyone for the comments!

DoctorBlade wrote: I have to agree, how many came in Bright Red?

Very good question, I'd be curious to know as well.

Freaking LOVE that! The lowlow 9k looks to be the hot sh!t as well, looking forward to more!

By the end of the day:

And for ValuePack, I'm not sure quite where I left off with it, I haven't been on this forum much, but here's the Saab in its current state: Spartan by M. Washburn, on Flickr Wood by M. Washburn, on Flickr

Doing work I see. Good looking Saab too. Keep it up

Very cool! Those floorpans would give me nightmares, but since you're from the Northeast that's probably normal. Good luck and keep us posted!

Got a little more done today. Both driver's and passenger's floor pans are roughed in and trimmed, along with the additional firewall patch on the passenger side. Lines are scribed to start trimming up the sheet metal on the car itself, so I'll be doing that later this week as soon as I acquire a more potent air compressor. It was very slow going this weekend as we could only scrounge up a 1.5gal compressor to run the die grinder :p (Apparently I forgot to snap a photo of the roughed in pass. side. Oops.)

But thestig99 showed up and got bored and decided to see how well the 40 year-old paint would shine up. (They guy's a boss when it comes to all that detailing stuff i just don't have patience for!) That was after about 2 minutes with a dirty microfiber with no pre-wash. I'm pretty pumped to see how a full detail suits her. All in good time though.

Nice work! You cant see the ground anymore.

That paint came through nicely. Is it clear coat or urethane?

DoctorBlade wrote: That paint came through nicely. Is it clear coat or urethane?

Uuuuhh honestly I know absolutely nothing about paint. Appears to be single stage.

Back then it might have been single-stage. Done right, it can be really durable.

Nice car nice work. Love old Mercedes. Keep up the good work and post when you can.

Very nice. I really like the colour - suits it. I have a '70 220D. I have some extra bits including front calipers if they are the same 4cyl to 6cyl.

Got a spanking deal on a barely-used shop necessity:

So trimming of floors should go much more quickly and smoothly this week!

Good looking car. Were you able to buy pre-made floor pans or did you have to fabricate them?

stuart in mn wrote: Good looking car. Were you able to buy pre-made floor pans or did you have to fabricate them?

Thankfully pre-made pans are fairly easy to find. Mine came from Klokkerholm, were about $70/side.

Heres my old 280; floors looked the same but I just used it as a winter Chicago car.

Yours is going to be way nicer!

That's cool about the pre-made floor pans.

Little more progress this week. Continued trimming and fitting the pans, getting everything perfectly aligned and ready for welding.

Made templates, measured, scribed, measured again, and drilled holes for the spot welds to the crossmembers:

Wire-wheeled the crossmembers and hit them with a coat of SEM Rust Shield:

And we had to rent a welder because the torch on the one we had was pretty much toast. Apparently someone tried welding with it without the tip, which caused the wire to arc into the housing, destroying the threads...So yeah. Once we got that out of the way, my brother set to work closing up seams on the pans:

Goal for tomorrow is to finish all the welding. Then the rest of the week will be an insane rush to get the car on the road in time for Wolfsgart next weekend. Wish me luck!

I've found another car I'd really like to get my hands on, so I'm offering this up for sale. If anyone's interested, let me know ASAP through the Craigslist link attached. Hate to sell it, and if I don't it's not a huge deal, I just wouldn't mind the space and funds for a good running weekend/summer car.

1973 w114 Mercedes-Benz 280 - Craigslist