Raptelan's 1980 300SD

[Casey]

Today my car feels WAY more sluggish and when idling the engine wobbles around a lot whereas it used to sit nice and steady.  I don't know what happened...

[1980sdga]

Fuel filter maybe? 

[Casey]

Fuel filter maybe? 

That was exactly it.  After I posted the last post, I went to the local auto parts store, and bought both replacement fuel filters.  Not the best brand I'm sure, but I figure it will do me for now.  The seller of the car warned me that they were in need of being replaced anyways.  The air filter was also looking dingy so I ordered another one.  It will be here in the morning.  I also bought a couple cans of Sea Foam fuel additive and poured some remaining Motorkote additive from my previous car to the oil.  All said and done, it seems to be running normally again.

[Casey]

Today I visited a few junkyards, searching for a W116.  I found a bunch of OM617 engines, in both W126's and 300CD's, but was not having any luck locating a W116.  I will probably raid some OM617 parts later when I have more cash.  Finally, at the third junkyard, I came upon a blue 1975 280SE.

I got the following:
* Driver-side door inner handle internals (mine is cracked and fell apart worse when I had the door panel off).  This actually came from the back door, because the one in the front seat of the 280SE was both non-OEM (had been replaced before), and cracked in two.  Haven't installed this yet.
* 2 door check stops, from the rear doors.  These are in great condition as anticipated.  I won't be installing them until I have a go at them with some ivory paint.  I'm not going to go for a perfect match, because it's only visible when the door is open, but the blue would look pretty awful when my car is ivory with brown interior.
* Passenger-side rear manual window regulator.  Just got the one as my funds are very limited and I thought that would be enough experiment for the time being.
* 3 Manual window cranks and plastic washers.
* Driver side external trim pieces.  Installed and looking pretty nice (pic to follow)!
* Bunches of screws, spare pieces, and useful bits.

My girlfriend found a hubcap for her car that she's been missing for 3 years.  So she was happy too.  Spent less than $30.

Once home, I cleaned the trim pieces up, and then scrubbed the damaged side of my car.  I managed to remove pretty much all of the visible rubber marks - body work remains to be done and there are a couple scratches in the paint, but overall it cleaned up quite nicely and it's hard to tell it's been in an accident at a glance.  Here's a picture with the cleaning done and the new trim installed.  It was taken at dusk with a flash so the color is a bit off, but I think it's still clear how much of an improvement this is!



Now I can drive down the road again and be proud of my car's appearance even when I'm not in the fast lane where nobody can see the driver side. :-D

[Casey]

Tomorrow I will replace the driver's inner door handle, air filter, and do some degreasing on the engine.

[Casey]

Tomorrow I will replace the driver's inner door handle, air filter, and do some degreasing on the engine.

Today I discovered that rear door handles are slightly different from the front door handles AFTER spending time removing the metal bracket that I knew was specific to the rear ones, so replacing the front door handle was a no go.  Also discovered that the passenger side front inner door handle bracket is cracked, so it's only a matter of time until the other side which is more stressed as a result breaks too.

On the bright side, I did get the engine bay cleaner.  It's a lot of work, and I didn't want to take anything apart today, so it's just sort of a first pass.  I'm going to make it a point to do some cleaning on it on weekends when I have time.  I also replaced the air filter.

I disassembled the door check straps I obtained from the junkyard, scraped out all the old dried solid grease, sanded down and repainted the pieces that stick out from the doors that were blue to start with, and applied generous amounts of a synthetic heavy duty grease to them.








A lot of work for the check straps, especially as the original ones in my car were not even painted at all (though the ones from the 1975 were), but I'm really happy with the result and I know that I did a good job on them, which makes me happy.

[1980sdga]

Great job on the straps!  I'm assuming the 1st pic is the broken ones? Looks like that piece on the end is prone to breaking.

Are they hard to get out?

[jbrasile]

Great work on the door straps Casey!

I just noticed the vertical plastic strip between the A-pillar and the dash is broken, believe it or not these may still be available in the right color! I purchased a pair for my 78 450SEL when I did its body restoration last year, and the car is also Tobacco inside.

116 727 03 51 8209 - LH
116 727 03 51 8209 - RH

Price was $55.00 list, if they still exist I imagine cost shouldn't have  changed much.

Tks,

Joe

[Casey]

Great job on the straps!  I'm assuming the 1st pic is the broken ones? Looks like that piece on the end is prone to breaking.

Yep, minus the picture of the strap piece I found before that I posted in by broken power windows thread.  I don't remember where I put those so they didn't make this picture.

Are they hard to get out?

No, not if you're comfortable with taking the door panels off already anyways.

For that (just in case), do as follows:
* Unscrew the little screw on the upper back of the door, near the top corner.  This holds in the top bit of trim that goes up the side.
* Pull that piece of trim upward and it will come off.
* Unscrew the lock control from the base of the window.
* Pop out the black plastic bit from behind the inner handle.  Open the handle a bit to get it off.
* Unscrew the screw that was hiding behind the plastic bit, and slide down the chrome metal, to access a larger screw holding the armrest on.
* There is a hole on the bottom of the armrest - stick a long screwdriver up there and remove that screw.  It's the same size head as the one at the top.
* The armrest will now slide forward to unclip and come off.
* Lift the whole door panel upward (not out!) to release the clips that hold it on.  There are a few plastic ones at various places on the back of the panel that are prone to breaking, and a whole bunch along the windowsill on top that are metal and easy - just a pain to get reconnected (when it comes to putting the panel back on).

Okay, door panel removed, you might find a sheet of plastic glued to the frame.  I'm not sure what it's purpose is, and it's probably not there if the door has been opened before.  I kept the one I had as a template to cut some new pieces at some point, but it doesn't hurt to not be there.  So now:
* The check strap is connected to the chassis via a small pin.  There's a circle clip on the bottom that easily pops off, and then the pin pulls out from the top.  There are two plastic washers at the top and bottom of the strap - be careful not to lose those.  You will save yourself a whole lot of effort taking the check strap apart later if you remove this pin with the door in the midway position, rather than all the way open.
* Once that's connected, remove the two phillips screws on the door frame where the strap comes in.
* Last thing remaining is a hex bolt a few inches in from the screws.
* With that all loose, you just reach up in the frame and maneuver the check strap out.

I highly recommend doing this even if you don't have any issue, because as with a lot of other parts on the car, I believe a lot of the problem comes from lack of service over the years.  The grease in the junkyard ones was *really* hardened - I had to chisel it out with a flathead screwdriver.  I'm sure that excess buildup put more stress on the strap.  It might also be a good preventative measure to swap the front check straps with the rear, as the front ones have almost certainly seen a lot more use already.  I have yet to service the rear ones but will probably do this when I get around to that.

Also the little wheel things and side of the steel strap piece that gets all the friction were originally painted.  I have no idea why they would do this because the paint rubs off and then you have bits of extra friction mixed in the grease.  I cleaned all mine up with #3 steel wool.

Also, in addition to what you see greased above, I also put a strip of grease down the strap piece where it has rub marks, and coated all the metal wheel pieces with a bunch of grease before assembly.

[Casey]

I just noticed the vertical plastic strip between the A-pillar and the dash is broken, believe it or not these may still be available in the right color! I purchased a pair for my 78 450SEL when I did its body restoration last year, and the car is also Tobacco inside.

I'm really not sure what my plans are for the interior yet, and $55 is a lot of money for a piece of plastic.  Although most of my interior is quite intact, the plastic pieces like that have gotten brittle with age and I may end up needing to replace more than I want to bother with buying - I'm half tempted to just redo the whole interior custom at some point.  *shrugs*  Thanks for the info, though!

[Casey]

Yesterday and today my transmission has been shifting late out of second, then ending up in fourth after I release the gas enough to make it shift, with me having to then floor the gas or shift into S to get into 3rd to get the acceleration I want when I want it.  

I checked the transmission fluid and it looks to be overfilled - it's way above the top line, almost to the first bend in the dipstick.  Should I drain some out?  I also noticed it's a red colored fluid - I thought MB stuff was clear...  It looked clean but I'm not sure it's the best fluid.  Maybe I should just change it out entirely.  That's a job I haven't done myself before but I don't suppose it's much harder than an oil change?

I bumped the cell phone microphone above the driver seat and the brittle plastic clip broke, leaving it dangling in my face.  So I set about removing the cell phone stuff.  What an ordeal.  Had to take out the front chrome trim in the sunroof opening to get the cable out, which then wound it's way through the trim pieces on the passenger side.  I took the broken one photoed above off easily enough (now I know why it's broken), but failed to figure out how to get the piece along the side of the windshield off after removing the screw at the bottom.  No matter - I cut the microphone off and got the wire pulled through, which then went under the glove compartment.  Took off that carpet panel and plastic panel behind it.  I'm pretty sure I must be missing some pieces or screws or something - there was only one screw holding the plastic panel to the center console - nothing holds it up on the other side except the carpet piece.  It was a lot of trouble getting it put back together and now it's not looking right.  Hopefully I can explore this further on the 280SE at the junkyard.  Anyways that removed, I was able to cut and pull through the wires from under the hood connected to the battery.  One wire was spliced into another yellow wire using a tap splice - I don't know what the yellow wire might be for - I could barely reach it so I removed the tap splice and left it there.  There was also some big round connector with a pin that wasn't connected - no idea what that is.  There's a metal box that snaps into a holder on the plastic panel - it was just floating around in there so I attached it back correctly when reassembling.  I also found in here an RJ45 plug which was part of the cell phone kit - it apparently used to stick out the carpet on the center console on the passenger side.  This had it's own wire, and the others all went into a thick wire bundle, running up the carpet on the side.  Cut and fished that through some more - I've got them pulled through to the back seat.  I ran out of daylight.  Tomorrow I will try to get the rest of it pulled out.

My back seat is in sorry shape - it feels just awful without any padding.  I gave some coworkers a ride to lunch today, and now it looks all sad and flattened/stretched out.  I'm sure I need new horsehair pads at a minimum.  So much to do on this car - but I should look into the cost of those and the effort involved in replacing them, as it's probably fairly low cost compared to a lot of the other work I have to do, and will add a lot of comfort.

My battery is also in sorry shape.  In addition to producing random voltages anywhere up to 17 volts, there was a little indicator thing on the top that showed you that the battery had charge.  I found it wedged in between the battery and the holder today, with an open hole into the battery, and battery acid all over the top of the battery.  It's also too small.  So I'll be picking up a new battery on Friday when I get paid.  I'm wondering if the voltage regulator even needs replaced or just the battery, but it was pretty cheap so it can't hurt.

I'm driving to Chicago via Indianapolis this coming weekend, and back the following weekend - around 1500 miles round trip.  Suggestions on anything else I should check on before embarking appreciated!

[1980sdga]

This is what I found when I took mine out to do the shocks:



The horsehair had just turned to dust    I'm assuming that there MUST be something that would make a good substitute.  Maybe some type of heavy quilt batting or something?  You're pretty handy Casey. Figure it out and let me know  

I'd get that charging problem straightened out ASAP, especially since you're hitting the road pretty hard. Sounds like a battery would be a good place to start.  My regulator started showing trouble when I was doing a lot of night driving so you may want to get a regulator to have on hand even if you don't install it.  I had to order mine from the parts store and it took a day for it to come in.

I would also get my transmission serviced. Flush, new filter, gasket and fluid.  It's on my to do list    I really need to get that done... I've done it on US cars before and it's not that difficult. You just need to remove the trans. pan to get to the filter.

From what I've read these transmissions are pretty robust but have some finicky controls that need to be adjusted properly.  I think our cars have the Bowden cable as well as some vacuum controls and the electric kick down that can be out of adjustment.  This is just armchair quarterback stuff, I haven't fooled with any of it yet.

Good luck with the trip!  That's what these cars were born for  

[Casey]

This is what I found when I took mine out to do the shocks:

I'm pretty sure that's not the picture you meant to post.

The horsehair had just turned to dust    I'm assuming that there MUST be something that would make a good substitute.  Maybe some type of heavy quilt batting or something?  You're pretty handy Casey. Figure it out and let me know

I'll probably just order new horsehair pads.  What's odd is that my front seats are in great condition.

Sounds like a battery would be a good place to start.  My regulator started showing trouble when I was doing a lot of night driving so you may want to get a regulator to have on hand even if you don't install it.  I had to order mine from the parts store and it took a day for it to come in.

I've already ordered a new voltage regulator - should be here Friday.

Probably won't bother with transmission until after the trip, unless it's just to drain out some of the fluid.  Unless it's harmful to have excess, I'll probably just leave it alone for now.

[Squiggle Dog]

You probably just need the pads (I've heard they are actually rubberized coconut husks), and they are rather thick. You might find some used ones about, but you can get them new if you have the money. Sadly, you will probably find that the fabric backing that holds the skin padding strips in place has deteriorated and that the strips won't go back into place (creases in the stitched areas not holding their shape is an indicator of this). On a set of seats I had, I sprayed adhesive on the backside of the skins and glued the pad strips to them so they stayed in place. The proper way to repair it would be to sew a new fabric on to hold the pad strips in place, but that is a lot of work.

As for the transmission, depsite having recently replaced mine, I don't know a whole lot about them. There is a "control pressure rod" that attaches on the throttle linkage plate over the valve cover and connects to the transmission. This rod tells the transmission at which engine speed to shift. Since your transmission has suddenly decided to not shift on time, I'm not sure if this rod is needing adjustment, but there is supposed to be a plastic bushing down on the transmission end, and it's possible this bushing may have fallen apart and come out, which would effect the travel of the control rod.

There is also a vacuum modulator on the side of the transmission which can go bad, but I think the only thing it does is control how soft or firm it shifts. Other than that, I'm not sure, except maybe replace the fluid and filter. It takes common Dexron III ATF, which is red. I'm not familiar about the fancy Mercedes fluid, though I like to run synthetic Red Line D4 ATF.

[jbrasile]

Casey,

Get the excess trans fluid drained as soon as possible, excess fluid will increase transmission pressure and could cause damage.

As you probably know you check the level with the engine warm after a short drive so the transmission fluid is also at operating temperature.

Our cars just use regular Dexron II or III , red in color. No need to go fancy or spend extra money for synthetic, etc..., just buy a quality brand when topping off or servicing the auto box.

A pillar covers - once you remove the bottom screw, you just pull them towards you, they are a little tough to re-install  but a couple of metal clips is all that holds them to the pillar

Under dash panels:

carpet piece is held by for screws and two plastic buttons
plastic panel behind carpet is actually the air duct that directs air to the doors
this duct is attached to the main a/c/heater box by two screws on the console side and behind it there is another plastic piece that is attached to the duct by 2 or 3 metal buttons and one screw on the RH corner of the passenger foot well, sort of behind the glove box. The external side of the duct is attached to the A pillar by a screw that is partially hidden by the footwell side panel.

the rear plastic piece is held also by a plastic button that goes into a plug on the passenger footwell, you can see it if you lift the carpet a little.

Hope this helps you figure it out.

Tks,

Joe