Getting Ready for Winter

Yesterday, the SEC was at the cleaning shop for a repeat cleaning of the rooflining and center console stain. It was free because I mentioned in passing to the shop's owner that the mentioned places had been left dirty last time the car was there. This time they did a better job, the rooflining is nearly perfect and the stain is better, not gone but much better. While the car was there, I think they also did some extra cleaning inside, so all's good.

I also had the chance to borrow a friend's garage in order to prep the car for the winter season. Starting with the wax, I did the usual: wash, clay, quick wash again, wipe dry, wax.

Applied 2 coats of longlife wax to the hood and side sheetmetal, and 1 coat to other panels. I also waxed the windows, except windshield. This improves the look of the glasswork and should improve visibility in the rain.

Also polished and waxed the front bumper's brightwork, neglected to take a pic.

Also, I got this from ebay. It's the so-called lightning sticker, warning drivers from touching the high-voltage ignition leads. All Mercedes from the period should have one like this. Note, this has a W123 part number. It is no longer available at the dealers, they only sell the "new design" as seen on W124s.

 I spent some time cleaning the engine bay again, had the airbox off and wiped down the valve covers etc. While I had the airbox off I decided to oil the throttle linkage again. I also oiled the hood hinges and door/trunk lock mechanisms.

Car should be ready for the winter season. Doing all this only took me about 12 hours, so not too bad.

AMG Penta Restoration, Part II: The Result

Two weeks ago, I took the Pentas out for paint. They were spraypainted 735 Astralsilver, with a shiny clearcoat. Reasoning for the color is:

• The best way to accomplish 199 with polished lips is first polishing the lips, then having the rims oven-baked with hard lacquer and then only painting the centers with color.
• I had already set a date for paint and did not want to cancel that.
• There are no oven painters nearby.
• I don't know anyone offhand who would polish the lips and doing it myself would require constructing a rig from scratch, which would most likely not happen before winter.
• There is a problem with painting rims only partly; most paint shops I've asked don't want to do it, and doing it myself would probably not be robust enough for winter use.
• 735 Astralsilver is the default color for Mercedes-Benz silver color wheels.

There were no problems and the wheels look very nice:

I got some used full metal valves for them from a friend. Before mounting them, I had to do a bit of a restoration job on the valves. I had a couple weeks to do that, since the clearcoat on the wheels will need to harden for 1-2 weeks before taking the wheels to a tyre shop.

Here's how the valves looked when I got them. On them was a rock-hard coat of what I suppose was brake dust. It felt like paint. It was all over the valves and even on the caps. I tried white spirit, WD40 and Brake Cleaner and it would just not wipe off.

The valve has a rubber O-ring on the inside. I gave it a silicone bath in order to freshen it up. This should minimize the risk of air leaks, after all the valves are used.

I lucked out and got a set of MINT metal valve caps for free at a local Euromaster tire shop. They look brand new and more importantly, they are basically the same shape as the old brake dust covered ones were. If I were to go buy these at an accessory retailer, they would be "tuning parts" which means colors like copper, electric blue and pink, low material quality, excessive length and thickness, and high price. These ones, OTOH, look small and classy.

I tried scraping the black crud off with my bare nails and that worked. So giving the parts a toxic bath and then scrubbing did the trick. I cleaned up the fat part, and left the actual valve part with grooves be, since that will be hidden by the other bit.

I was pretty ecstatic with how the Pentas turned out:

Tires are GoodYear UltraGrip Ice+ 205/55 16" which I had bought previously for the BBS RS wheels.

There was a problem while mounting the tires. It turns out while restoring wheels you should always leave the hub unpainted. This is so obvious now, but I just didn't think of it. Neither did the sodablast guy, or the painter. So of course on two wheels' hubs there were uneven clearcoats with some bubbles as a bonus. This threw the balancing off and I had to scrape the bubbles off with a razor. Even so, two of the wheels were a bit more involved to balance. Oh well, you live and learn.

The wheels are straight, so they could be made perfect by grinding the clearcoat and paint off the hubs, but I think I'm going to live with the extra wheel weights, at least until the next set of tires. Driving home, the wheels had zero vibration.

Speaking of wheel weights, you might recall previously the wheels had knock-on weights on the outside rim. Since the wheels now look nice and shiny, I had the tire guy put glue weights on the inside. They are less visible to the outside, but more involved to get just right, and the glue can let go. I figured since I drive little over the winter, and slowly at that, I should be ok with glued weights.

The tires feel so good. It's hard to describe in a reasonable amount of text what a transformation the change from summers to frictions makes. Initially, I can put my finger on:

• The steering suddenly got very light and comfortable. It even feels more responsive. On a fast road (80 kph) even the tiniest correction on the wheel translated into a change of direction. It felt like changing tires took about 50 % or 75 % of slack off my steering gear. And boy, I can't emphasize too much how light the steering is now. You can literally steer the car with one finger whereas with the summers the steering feels somewhat heavy, definitely heavier than W124's I've driven.
• The frictions are much, much quieter. This is obvious but then there are some aspects to it that aren't immediately so. The frictions are quieter because the compound is softer. Thus the whole feel of the car, inside, is transformed. I notice way fewer rattles and sudden noises in the interior while driving on the frictions. Even driving over speed bumps or a rough asphalt spot, the car makes a soft thud, not... an edgy thud... it's really hard to describe but I definitely noticed this.

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...