Ashtray Wood Repair

There was only one part of the car that fell victim to the Ahvenisto road trip. That was the ash tray. More specifically, the burlwood on it dropped off.

Unlike most pieces of trim on the car, this piece of wood is held in place with glue (or double sided tape actually). After 24 years, it let go.

The polished trim on the ashtray forms a lip, under which the lip on the burl locks in.

First, I needed to get rid of the old tape. It had turned into a vaguely sticky goop which was mostly easy to just scoop off. After that, a good scrub with paper and white spirit.

All wood parts on these were marked at the factory... When I polished the center console wood, it had a "1988" marking on it.

Applied new double sided tape and carefully slid the lid into its "groove".

Voila!

Ahvenisto Track Day 2012

Yesterday, the M-B Club had a track day at the Ahvenisto race circuit. Turnout was pretty good even though it was cloudy and had just been raining when we arrived. Fortunately the weather turned to some warm sunshine as the day progressed.

Got to take the car for as many laps as I liked for free. I did 10-ish laps. For the hell of it I had a buddy time a couple of my laps, so my best time at Ahvenisto is currently 2:09.9. I was partly stuck behind cars for both laps, though.

Unsurprisingly, the car feels very heavy when going through corners, and like I've said before, the engine is pretty weak unless you rev it like crazy. Furthermore, even without really pushing the car, it feels like the rear likes to step out a bit. It's very logical and easy to control, however, and minimal, unless you really push the car. It will also cook its brakes in like 3 laps, so I basically got 1 or 2 quick laps in before having to come in and cool the brakes.

By sheer coincidence, Lastsoul of FinalGear ran into me while I was standing around the pits. Apparently, he had been in the morning event, where there were, among other marques, loads of Miatas. He told me his camera batteries were running low, so I gave him my camera for the day.

The second guy from the right is me. Pic credit: Lastsoul

Pic credit: Lastsoul

Pic credit: Lastsoul

Pic credit: Ville Suutari

I got to ride a couple laps in the brand new C Coupe 6.3 AMG. Its engine was plenty powerful and torquey, the soundtrack was great, but otherwise the car left me quite cold, as most new cars do. Also present but not allowed on the track was the ML class with the same engine. I was also taken for laps in a 600 SE W140 and a W220 3.2.

The 600 was surprisingly stiff around corners. Relatively. Way stiffer than the 126. It had just the default suspension, no hydropneumatic configurable magic. To ride in, it felt like a very large and very well preserved W124, as far as body stiffness.

It was elegant and relaxed, and in no way uncomfortable around the track. And this is only the chassis. Don't get me started on the interior which was mint on this car. The wood trim looked like it had a 2cm lacquer coat, and the color of it was just perfect. The leather was black and extremely well preserved. No squeaks, rattles or clunks came from any of the interior or chassis. Any wind noise or roar from the other cars was behind dual layer glass, we were caccooned in what felt like a really well furnished bank vault. 

The day ended on a high note, as a had the chance to visit a club buddy's garage in Lahti, where many finished, near-finished and completely unfinished projects lurked. I got to ogle at and/or sit in at least a Citroen DS, a 1957 Thunderbird, a couple of 30s cars (Cadillac and Chrysler), a 1923 Studebaker Convertible, a mint RR Silver Shadow and also an old Rover of some sort. For a DDer he has a rust-free US-import M-B R107.

AMG Penta Restoration, Part I

I'm trying to have the AMG Pentas refinished for the winter, as planned.

Honestly, I had no idea what condition the alloys were under the various spray paints and factory paint that were on the rims. They looked so sad it wasn't really possible to judge the condition of the wheel. Thus for a proper restoration, there were no alternatives but to sodablast them to bare aluminium and then repaint.

Had them sodablasted at a local business who have just started this summer: Karjalan Soodapuhallus. The cost was very reasonable and kept some sense in the restoration idea. The company was great to work with; accomodating, quick, professional. Warm recommendations.

Sodablasting is, in my opinion, the proper way to strip paint from aluminium wheels. Sandblasting is too rough on the surface, it leaves an uneven surface that looks a lot like sandpaper itself. Sodablasting, on the other hand, strips no medium and thus leaves a smooth surface ready for finishing. Glass blasting, while better than sandblasting, is messy and expensive. The problem with sodablasting is finding someone willing to do the job; it is a new profession and requires expensive hardware, lots of work to execute and soda isn't cheap either. Mercedes-Benz and AMG wheels have incredibly tough factory paint on them which makes sodablasting them a particularly expensive thing to do. I was told the sodablaster had his hardware set on a setting an order of magnitude higher than he would normally do, and soda consumption was silly. He should've charged more, but we had agreed on a price, and he honored it.

Fortunately, the alloys look almost pristine now that they are bare aluminium. No curb rash, no dents, not even stone chips or even scratches.

New finish is not set in stone yet. I'm hoping for 199 (body color) with polished lips but there are some problems with that.

• Powdercoating is the proper way to do aluminium wheel restoration. Spray painting is unreliable for wheels that get used daily. One stone chip and you might be getting clearcoat peel or oxidation. Painting aluminium takes special expertise and cannot be done well by someone who is only used to painting cars, for example. But, there is no powdercoating place nearby, and powdercoating the 199 color is difficult and expensive.
• Having a paint shop spraypaint the wheels with a proper color costs 400 EUR locally, and they can't guarantee a perfect result in spraypainting a wheel with its complex shape, they would rather have me powdercoat them.
• Polishing the lip would require some sort of apparatus for spinning the wheel, I don't have a clue how to go about that and it'll no doubt be pretty expensive without a junkyard nearby.
• The one paint shop I've asked will not do a two-tone paint job (199 with chrome paint lip).

I gained some contacts at Itätähti which will hopefully resolve some of those issues. I always have the backup option of going to single color (astral silver), which would still leave me with all the problems of spraypainting.

Single color black or bodycolor would look extremely tacky on this car since the body has so much brightwork.

I will have to make the decision soon, because aluminium oxidizes in air. I only have a couple of weeks before the wait will have hurt the new finish.

Stay tuned for how the wheels turn out.

Trippin' On Sunshine

Finally, I'm able to use the car as it was intended: go weeks without worrying about this and that, drive up to meetups and enjoy life with the 560 SEC.

I have not done anything to the car, just been driving it, fueling it and checking the oil (seems not to be eating up any).

I've been hanging out with my friends in the M-B Club of Finland, and the FinalGear (#gear.fi) crew. Here's a selection of fantastic days spent with the SEC.

Lead the pack in the South Karelian meetup, here parked between a 6.3 and a 4.5 at Saimaa Gardens.
Pic credit: karra @ mersuforum.net

Also lead the pack for a while in the #gear.fi meetup! Pic taken while parked up at Partaranta.
Pic credit: Lastsoul @ FinalGear

#gear.fi meetup continues north.
Pic credit: Lastsoul @ FinalGear

#gear.fi crew parked up at Puumala harbor.
Pic credit: Lastsoul @ FinalGear

M-B Club event "Eastern Star" at Koria.

Death Rattle

While cruising, the car started making a worrying death rattle under the hood. I stopped and determined, much to my relief, that it was not coming from the engine, but somewhere forward of it.

So, I quickly drove home to diagnose it with a makeshift "mechanic's stetoscope". As you know, the principle is, you take a wooden or metallic rod, place one end to your ear, and the other to suspected sources of noise... The rod will conduct sound and make it much easier to pinpoint problems.

Sure enough, it wasn't the valve train or any of the pistons. The noise seemed to come from the auxiliaries but it was none of the top ones, which I could reach (alternator and power steering). Therefore it had to be the a/c compressor. Since it had no refridgerant in it anyway, I took off the v-belt and voila:

Besides the belt being shot, the tensioner wheel had some slop, so both will have to be replaced, when I gain inspiration to fix up the a/c. Haven't needed it so far, these last 2 years...

Yet Another Russia-Refueler

I finally got my long-term visa so I've started refuelling in Russia.

Picture taken in Svetogorsk.

The Finnish "fuel rally" to Russia is a phenomenon as old as the post-USSR Russia itself. Gasoline is so much cheaper there than in Finland, it makes sense to pay for the visa, pay for the trip and sit in a border queue for hours, just to buy a tankful of gas.


I drove 50 km with the fuel light on and once there, refueled 82,51 litres and a 10 litre canister at 89 eurocents / litre. This was 95 octane, since Russia is not in the EU, and thus there is no ethanol in their fuel. This means it's better quality and less "dry", therefore nicer for old engines.

The trick is to gather experiences from friends and acquintances who have been doing this a long time and know the local fuel stations. A good friend of mine has been going there for 15 years to refuel. For instance, he told me he knew some people have bought bad gas from the nearest Russian gas station. No experiences like that from the next one over, about 10km further. Also, Lukoil gas stations are generally pretty trustworthy. Lukoil is a very large Russian oil company who also owns at least parts of the Finnish oil company Neste.

I asked him a while back whether he'd ever been overcharged for a tank, or heard such. The answer was no to both. Really, so many Finns go to the nearest gas stations at the border that the companies can't really operate like that. Of course, I also counter this by buying Rubles in Finland and paying in cash at the station. Take the total amount that's displayed on the pump display and that's that. I guess it'd be easier to overcharge if you pay by credit card, and then you also run the risk of someone duping your card. 

I saved 55 eur on this tank including the trip there and excluding the extra canister.

Greetings From Särkisalmi

The 560SEC successfully ferried me and my PC to a LAN Party yet again. I took some time off to check out local rural roads and shot a memento.