1968 Mercedes W114 saloon

Snap! I also have one if these.. mine being black with brown interior also with the colum shift. Currently restoring it with a modern twist/update. How are you finding yours?

Oh how naive that was.

UPDATE TIME

It wasn't rust free. Far from it. Being busy with a new baby daughter and not having anywhere indoors to work I sent my Merc off to somewhere on the other side of the country to change the engine. The old M180 engine was a mix of bodges. While they had the engine out I got them to get someone to weld up the firewall as water was getting into the cabin somehow. Long story short the person changing the engine didn't get around to doing much as they had personal issues to deal with. At the time I didn't have the space or capacity to do anything much myself so focussed on other things.


So after 2 years I got the car back without engine. The car had been in a barn where feral cats had ruined the interior and scratched all over the boot climbing on it. It was marginal whether I would bother trying to put things right. Enough whinging though.




Here's the welded up firewall. Wait a minute though, what's this?



This doesn't look good.

Okay, to explain what's going on I need to take a step back. There's a joke in German /8 circles about how the W114/5 is a heater fan with a car welded around it. It's not quite true but a good approximation of reality. The blower fan lives in a space between the front and rear upper firewall.

Like this.



There's a design flaw (or planned obsolescence!) in that the three drainage holes are not at the lowest part of this so as the sealant inside ages and cracks water gets between the panels, rots them carries on to the floor-pan and sits hidden under the carpet where it works its way through into the chassis rails where it rots them from the inside out.

I have a theory that /8s were used in James Bond movies and similar as villain cars that got blown up or crashed over cliffs because they looked fantastic on the outside but were write-offs because of this problem. That and their superficially  similar design style to the W600 dictator cars or very similar W108/9. 



www.autotopnews.de/de/644/no/3/bilder/detail29506.htm



Then I found out a few months ago that in the raid on Entebbe, the Israelis used a W115 lang  full of blacked up Israeli Commandos to masquerade as Idi Amin, his W600, and entourage. Steady wokesters - it was acceptable in the '70s.  Might even have been a diesel cos if you're being politically incorrect, might as well go big or go home. Looks for link:

external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.explicit.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.e3iGafPGg1fd2PzZXCVpIAHaE8%26pid%3DApi&f=1



Anyhow I just know this repair is going to be a botch. With the wrecked interior and paintwork I'm at the stage where I might just call it quits but on the other hand, when at that stage there's nothing left to lose. So you can be drastic.

I hatched a plan to cut away and see just how bad things were. First rule of problems is understanding the problem in as much detail as possible.




Out comes this - the classic 'weld some new metal over the top to hide the mess'




At this stage I haven' chased back all the rust, there's more to come out here.

As the inner firewall is a bit of a complex shape, I built it up in small pieces from above to below, then bent to shape after welding to allow for distortion. Sometimes I would cut back what I had previously welded to get the shape better. A larger piece could be bent more smoothly then the lower part could be cut away.



A) Previously welded, cut back and epoxy primered. It was often quite a few days or weeks between welding sessions so I always planned to finish by painting what was done. This was very slow progress. Months. I'd never Mig welded before.

D) Joining the dots on the latest piece. I'd usually weld from within the engine bay and also inside the cabin.

B) To be investigated.

C) Some gummy goop blocking what should be a drainaway for no good reason.


If nothing else, at the end of the firewall from hell I had more of an idea how long repairing things would take.

Looking around the engine bay, I found some more holes, probably related to 50 years of brake fluid overspills.
















Having built up all the awkwardly shaped parts of the inner firewall, the outer is much easier. One large piece, mostly plug welded with some butt welds at the ends and a big service hole for the blower motor.

A) butt weld
B) Plug weld
C) unwelded to leave 4 inch gap at bottom for water egress.
D) Blower hole.

Quite an undertaking! Lovely to see this old car being pulled back together and redesigned and improved.

Great work, bookmarked!

I dug out another picture of the 'repair' I had to cut out - you can just see the zintec sheet through some of the holes



A) is where the seatbelt reel attaches. If you push the seat back too far it catches the reel and pivots it out of alignment meaning the seatbelt locks up. B Would be a better placement and I'm sure I've seen later /8s with this setup. So


Seatbelt captive nuts welded to the back, lots of hammering to get each of these to sit nicely ready for plug and edge welding


Like so


Then painted

Between welding the front and welding the rear arch I did a bunch of other things. Winter I work in my shed, nicer weather on the necessary outdoor things.

Here's some of these mini-projects in no particular order because I can't remember when I did things


The dash is quite damaged at the top. Bubbles and cracks


Ruthlessly cut them out

And fill with Sikaflex. Didn't notice nosey cat in this picture until just now.

Get the approximate shape back

Then a leather cover from a supplier off Ebay. As the seam is the part that will catch the eye, I need to keep it as true as possible. Solution: use sewing pins between the stitching to lock the seam into position before doing any gluing. The upholstery glue doesn't tolerate moving. Once the two glued sides are pushed togfether they want to stay that way. 

Ruler to ensure straightness

Pulll the top into shape then down onto the glue. Annoyingly the slits pre-cut for the vents were way out. They would do better not to cut these at all and let the fitter do it.




Then repeat below. 

This leather kit was made for the more luxurious/later dashboards with the zebrano trim running along the centre. These dashboards have a larger recess for the wood so even if I got the correct wood trim from somewhere (which I don't want to do) it wouldn't fit this dash. The wood would hold the leather overlap under itself and make a nice join. For the upper leather I carefully scalpelled back the excess flush with the crease in the dashboard. For the underside of the dash I'm not going to bother as I wouldn't be able to get a good finish. 

SUBFRAMES

The front subframe came out while I was welding the front. Aqua blasted, painted, new bushes and bearings then put back. Then the car went up on its side which needs the axles and hence subframes in place. After the car had finished being on its side the rear subframe came off and received the same treatment. I'll document the subframes together though.

But first a useful diagram from Mercedes showing where to apply waxoyl/dinitrol/Col Sanders grease








The front subframe and wishbones back together


Some parts needed persuading to let the bushes back in


Merc SLC R107 backing plate as R107 hubs and brakes will be fitted. R107s are more much more common and their brake parts seem considerably cheaper. You need to use the R107 hubs though.


It turns out that there were two different types of upper wishbone. One had bolt in balljoints and the other riveted but you can grind out the rivets and bolt in a new balljoint. They had different bolt spacing as per picture and different part numbers. One is easy to get new and the other a bit more difficult. If anyone needs part numbers or dimensions I can dig them out but don't have the information to hand. 


stripping down the rear subframe for blasting, new bushes...

paint always transforms

Adding or removing a bearing surface from the rear hub. Seems odd that the rear hub is part of the lower wishbone. Can't have cost much more to have had a separate lower wishbone and stub axle hub. The rear wheel up and down movement is more like a swing axle when it could have kept the tyre parallel with the road. 

That "R" or  "L" is not there after 50 years. 

As it's so heavy I took it out of the shed in pieces and assembled  by the car 



not watching you

or stalking

nope


What are you looking at?




6 bolts away from fitting ... and discovering that while a W123 rear diff will fit, its backplate is deeper, meaning it won't bolt up to the body. I wanted to use the W123 type backplate as the rubber part is easy to get cheaply and the /8 rubber is really really expensive. So W123 diff for economy but re-using the W114 backplate.

None of this wanted to go together, everything was a sweaty fight

REAR LIGHTS

The inners were heat damaged but easily repaired with Epoxy then sprayed with silver paint. Early /8s had both a parking light (where only the left or right would light up) and a tail light of the same wattage. Later ones used the same bulb for both functions. On mine, I discovered this as my tail lights didn't line up. Ie one was higher than the other. One part of the fitting had burned out so a previous owner botched the tail to the parking light. 






If the orange bulb is bright enough (Cree LED) it'll shine orange through a red lens. 


red to the left, amber to the right.

Console




Notice anything unusual?

it's altered to take a double-din radio.




Quite a bit of reinforcement to hold the radio and move the ashtray down one din from where it started life.

Time for more of the dirty big work.

Having sorted all of the bodywork in the front 1/3 of the car and in the cockpit I was aware of some weird stuff underneath so I got one of those car tilters.



Which arrived like this

And goes together like this. I don't like doing all this 'unusual' stuff in the front garden where I can be seen. Luckily thre was a lot of building work going on next door and nearby so my angle grinder sound blended in. No neighbour complaints whatsoever.

Generaly sound but so many repairs previously




Never comfortable when I find seam sealer apparently used as paint. I say seam sealer, might have been bath sealant as the black stuff didn't really stick to it. 



Surface rust

ground back and primered you can see how much of the car is. Patches everywhere. Ugly welding but solid. No more patches over rust. 


Takes so long and makes so much mess. 




Not sure what caused the pocks, they aren't spot welds


I can't get a the part above the axle so that will be dealt with when the car back level and the back subframe is removed.


Thjis was the only part that needed cutting and welding. It's the bottom of the box section upon which the seat lives. Actually quite easy and no, no of the welding you see in the pic above is mine


This is cut to the second lifting; after the rear subframe has been rejuvenated. Annoyingly I must have pushed the parking brake because I couldn't get the cabls to meet to reconnect. When it was back down i release the brake and could link everything up. 


I took a lot of photos while dissassambling and re-assembling the underside. If anyone gets stuck as to what goes where, let me know as I may have a pic.