1966 Merc 250s M104

Last night's work:

One gearshift mount, now for the front cover!

Working on house today, so no merc action, but I fulfilled a lifelong dream this afternoon.

I bought a drill press or pillar drill depending on where you are. It was local, good price, and hardly used.

1969 Craftsman. 15in travel. It is 6' tall. Its massive. Way way way more than I will ever need, but for $100 who could say no? No?

Guy's dad bought it new, guy has had it for 20 years and has never used it. Came with manuals and spare belts. Result.

All I need to do is give it a once over, Oil it and I think get a half-way decent cross slide vice.

It still has the plastic over the metal data plates.

I'm the sort of person that needs to remove them on anything new. I will resist that temptation.

Brilliant. 

Took the angry end of the paint stripper wheel to the metal around the rear drivers side wheel arch.

It's not good, but I'm ok with it. I knew it was going to get worse before it gets better.







There was a generous slap of filler on the leading edge of where the sill and the wheelarch meet, not a biggie. But the wedge of filler on the trailing end of the arch was amazing. 20+mm thick in places. So the hole is a wee bit larger than I hoped, oh well.

Some of the rust on the inner sill I think relates directly to a poor jack location episode many moons ago. There is a dent that has the hallmarks of a round jack head that separated a seam, everything after that is gone.

Still pottering along with this! I have progress!

Patched the trailing end of the sill and corresponding chassis rail to almost the bump stop. Happy with that. Mostly....

Also chopped out the trailing end of the rear arch. I had been looking at repair sections, but given the cost of getting one here, there will be an attempt at making it myself.

Been working on the house project, so little updates.

Had to change the rocker cover gasket on my t4 as it had been leaking enough to cause a misfire.

Turned out that when the previous owner had the water pump and timing chain done, the garage left out the gasket for one of the spark plug holes.

I had been putting it off as long as possible, until I finally got a check engine warning. This picture sums up why I was procrastinating.



It's VW / Audi service position! I still had to take the alternator off.

Been a while!

I fought with the axle and fought it some more. Then when I thought I was done, I fought it again.

The issue was trying to get the angle of insertion correct. There is a carrier in the floor of the boot that locates the swing axle. It's an arm that is attached to a heavy, bendy axle that has a mind of it's own.

For something that came out so easily, it really did not want to go back. Or perhaps what I should say is, it only wanted to go in when all the stars were aligned, and it felt like it. I had initially thought that I would get the trailing arms all in place, with shocks and springs and the rear compensator spring. It's much easier to install these off the car than when the axle is under the car, but that was a mistake.

In the end I stripped the axle down again to just the bare unit and then the center support went in fine, almost easily. Almost....

All arms, springs, shocks, etc were put back on, without drama.

I lost the rear brakes. I have 3 sets of rear brakes for this car. I found a set, stripped and seized bleed nipple, I don't want to deal with that. Look again for several days, find another set, the rebuild kit doesn't fit. It appears that I have a combination of different piston sized ATE calipers. I had assumed that the rebuild kit was delivered incorrectly, bit the replacement also didn't fit. I ordered another brand and it too, didn't fit. I go and look at the 1st set of calipers and they are the correct size for the kit.

From what I can see, and it's not clear, that either the early cars had a carry over from the W111/2, or USA and EU cars started with different sized rear calipers. either way, what I had didn't fit. I used the set that had seized bleeders and ended up tapping them out and using a repair kit to..... repair them. I also painted them while they were stripped down. I thought I had ordered black paint, but red was in the tin. Red was used begrudgingly.

New brake lines, bled them, handbrakes adjusted, I can move on to something new. Well something old.

When I replaced the sill on the P/S I had left the trailing end rough and this was done knowing I would have to replace the rear arch. I didn't want to do it then, and I still don't, but it's the last major rust that I have to deal with so...




It's the first photo I've taken this year of the car. Yeesh!

I also put the hood back on and wings are also back on. Mostly. OK, mildly.

Last night I put the DM flywheel on the engine, clutch and after fighting the gearbox for 30 min, gave up before I hurt myself.

I'll try again later today after work.

Feel you on that!

I have a Mojo failure at the moment so about to go outside, push Woody out of the shed and have a clear up in teh vain hope this will reignite the spark.

Nice work there, I really like these old Merc's.

P.