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I Picked Up A 1980 280SE Parts Car

Started by Squiggle Dog, 27 May 2018, 12:38 AM

ptashek

Hat of SD. It took me well over a year of weekends to dismantle my 350SE parts car... Funnily enough, it was also Milan Brown + Parchment, but leather.
1993 "Pearl Blue" W124 280TE
1988 "Arctic White" W124 200T
1979 "Icon Gold" W116 450SE

Squiggle Dog

...And it's gone! It went for scrap today. I saved as many parts as was practical so there wasn't a lot of waste. Holy heck, were there a lot of Craigslist flakes when it came to selling parts and finally getting rid of the car. The scrap yards wouldn't pay anything for it, but I finally ended up getting $50 for what was left. I still have a few parts left that I saved and haven't yet sold.

It's interesting because it turns out it's a 1978 that at some point was titled as a 1980. It appears to have been restored at one point, with new rocker panels, front bumper support, and patch panels welded on along with a repaint. And then it rusted out and got trashed again. It was worth the small investment as a parts car, that's for sure.

Stop paying for animal cruelty and slaughter. Go vegan! [url="https://challenge22.com/"]https://challenge22.com/[/url]

1967 W110 Universal Wagon, Euro, Turbo Diesel, Tail Fins, 4 Speed Manual Column Shift, A/C
1980 W116 300SD Turbo Diesel, DB479 Walnut Brown, Sunroof, Heated Seats, 350,000+

daantjie

Nice job SD! At least you picked off the good bits  :)
Daniel
1977 450 SEL 6.9 - Astralsilber

UTn_boy

You're lucky.....I have to PAY people to come get scrap cars. 
1966 250se coupe`,black/dark green leather
1970 600 midnight blue/parchment leather
1971 300sel 6.3,papyrus white/dark red leather
1975 450se, pine green metallic/green leather
1973 300sel 4.5,silver blue metallic/blue leather
1979 450sel 516 red/bamboo

Squiggle Dog

Quote from: UTn_boy on 16 December 2018, 08:33 AM
You're lucky.....I have to PAY people to come get scrap cars.

I had a person willing to pay $100, but they were a flake who kept saying, "Today won't work, tomorrow." I could have probably got decent money had I taken it to a scrap metal yard, but I don't have a way to get it there and if I rented a truck and trailer, it wouldn't be worth the trip.
Stop paying for animal cruelty and slaughter. Go vegan! [url="https://challenge22.com/"]https://challenge22.com/[/url]

1967 W110 Universal Wagon, Euro, Turbo Diesel, Tail Fins, 4 Speed Manual Column Shift, A/C
1980 W116 300SD Turbo Diesel, DB479 Walnut Brown, Sunroof, Heated Seats, 350,000+

Ronin2

Quote from: Squiggle Dog on 28 May 2018, 09:29 AM
Quote from: rumb on 27 May 2018, 04:39 PM
wow, your sure not wasting any time taking that car apart!

Nope! I'm not messing around here.

Quote from: floyd111 on 27 May 2018, 04:46 PM
I guess there isn't some fancy polymer/filler available to fill those tiny cracks in the panels, is there?

Not that I'm aware of, but it seems that if it actually worked, it would sell well.

Quote from: Euro_Sled on 27 May 2018, 11:28 PM
You have done more in a day than I did in a year! Interesting findings, keep up posts on the car!

Thanks! It's interesting the things you find out about cars once you start digging into them. I have a feeling the car was imported to the USA in 1986, as that is the year the speedometer was swapped out from miles to kilometers (by a shop in Florida), as that is the date written on it. Also, the air conditioning hoses have a date of 1985 on them, so the air conditioning was likely added in 1986 when it was imported. So, it probably spent 6 years in a country other than the USA

Even though the lower part of the body is really rusty, it appears that the part of the firewall that I need doesn't have any rust, or light surface rust, if any. There's a dam piece spot-welded to the firewall that diverts the water into the right side cowl drain instead of letting it leak into the blower motor. Mine is rusted away to nothing and has allowed water and debris to get sucked into the blower motor. Part of the lip around where the blower motor mounts is rusted away on my car as well, but on the 280SE, it's intact. So, my plan is to get a drill bit made for drilling out spot welds, remove the dam, and then use a cutoff disc and cut away the parts of the firewall that I need so I can attempt to weld them onto mine.

I think that at this point much of the interior is spoken for as I have a member who plans to drive over and purchase it in a couple of days (and he had expressed interest in the interior before I even acquired the car).

Fascinating detective work... thanks for sharing.  8)
1978 450 SEL Silver green metallic / tobacco brown
1980 450 SEL Anthracite grey / bamboo

rumb

Around here I net about $12 for a car chassis.
'68 250S
'77 6.9 Euro
'91 300SE,
'98 SL500
'14 CLS550,
'16 AMG GTS
'21 E450 Cabrio