Mercedes 300 CE Shed of the week.

Mercedes 300 CE Shed of the week.

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schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Monday 1st September 2014
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Evening all,following on from the shed of the week thread here:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
I thought I might as well post a bit of a running update on the old girl given the interest in it and general W124 love in the barge threads.
The purchase came about due to my wife's ruined old Scenic finally dying a death a couple of weeks back,leading to my much loved Clio 182 having to be sold to fund two more sheds,I was hoping both would hold out until January at which point the plan was to buy either an E46 M3 or a 135i Coupe.

I had the usual peruse of the classifieds etc but I have always wanted a CE and despite never having owned a Mercedes,I have owned countless 80's German rides,mostly E30 BMW's and MK1&2 Golf Gti's.
I had been bidding on a few on ebay and they had all been going for too much money given the condition they were in,I was however watching the SOTW when it appeared on here. It had a strange finish time on ebay,circa 8am on sunday morning so I placed a bid as I went to bed not really expecting a win. I was well pleased to wake up to a winning bid email,my wife however was not amused!
I had a good feeling about it given the quality of the advert,although the interior was a bit off putting (I liked it once I had sat in it though)!

Fast forward a week and I spent yesterday sat with the great unwashed on a sweaty noisy train travelling from beautiful East Yorks to the Midlands,the seller kindly picked me up at the station and had also taxed the car without any upfront payment,a thoroughly nice bloke,cheers Richard.
It drives absolutley spot on,not a single knock or worn bush to feel,and I cruised the 140 ish miles home on a third of a tank at 75-80 mph with all 4 windows down and the sunroof open a lot of the way.
This was the scene last night,finally tucked up in the toy box. It didn't miss a beat on the way back,its very smooth but it won't set any lap records at the ring! Also it has without doubt the worst stereo of any car I have ever been in,a task for the very near future being a bit of an audiophile!
The car has loads of history and has had some expensive looking plates on it over the years:
PDO 1
MCM 1L
88 GRH
It has every MOT proving the mileage to be genuine and most of the tax discs etc.



It's long,only just fits in!

I spent today making a start on things,was housebound this morning so decided to give it a thorough de-gunge as it has been stood for a year and has only done about 6k in the last 5 years,I also got some pics of the paint damage.







My first fix was clearing the drain in the fuel filler hatch with a long bit of cable,probably why it was so manky!



I also checked the areas that are normally rotten and was pretty pleased to find them rot free,this is the rear inner wheelarch,minty!



And the inner arch area behind the headlight where rotten wings work through,again they were mint.



So I headed down to the paint suppliers to buy some basecoat for the top of the car(Diamond Blue) and I had to ring the Mercedes dealer in Hull to get the code for the bumpers etc (Andor Blue). Supplies collected I made a start by painting the new wing that was supplied with the car,and putting some rust treatment on the o/s wing which has not rotten through and is well worth saving.
I put 1/2 a litre of over paintable stonechip/rust proofing on the back of the new wing then primed and painted the lot ready to be fitted tomorrow.









I will try and keep this up to date,I have this week off before heading back to work on Monday so I am hoping to get the body sorted this week and the interior/audio will have to wait until my shift changes back to week on/week off in october,it will be used as my daily driver in that time though,an 85 mile round trip each day!


schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Monday 1st September 2014
quotequote all
0a said:
Blimey you put the rest of us to shame - I reposted R129's excellent post in full on the barge thread (I meant to post it here but multiple windows confused me!).

Good luck and I look forward to the results; it's always nice to have another W124 saved.
I saw your post and bookmarked it on my iPad,plenty of useful info there!

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 2nd September 2014
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KillerHERTZ said:
Very nice!

How did you paint the wings, do you have a proper spray set up?
I have the use of a workshop with a slightly Heath Robinson spray booth and 4 post ramp,unfortunately no oven so the wing was sat on that stand with an infra red heat lamp cooking it instead.
I'm just going to get it as nice as I can this week and on a budget but in an ideal world I would have the whole car painted elsewhere by somebody else as I've lost the love for painting!

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 2nd September 2014
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Notadoctor said:
Very good, do please keep thread updated.

Isn't it fun bringing these back to standard? Most enjoying my similar W126 adventure.

Original number plate Sir?
http://www.capitalreg.co.uk/number-plate/PDO-1.pht...
I reckon if I had a spare £30k I would probably not be running around in a shed of the week! Would look very old money though.

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 2nd September 2014
quotequote all
J4CKO said:
Are you Ed China ?
No orange gloves here! (Got a few tins of satin black kicking around though). hehe

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 2nd September 2014
quotequote all
Got a bit more done today,not as much as I would like as I had to can it early because the Mrs wanted me home to sort stuff as the kids are back at school tomorrow. Managed about 4 hours though and stripped off the bumpers side panels and some other bits. I also got the old wing off which was amusingly bodged and fitted the new one,pleased with the panel gaps after some manhandling although it might as well be bright pink now it's next to the knackered bonnet!

Excellent fibreglass bodge on the old wing!


Very pleased with how solid it is,this is the inside of the boot wells behind the back wheels.


However this was lurking behind the back light


The jacking points all looked like this so I cleaned them up,put rust treatment on and then used some old school underseal to protect them,I wouldn't normally use that stuff as I prefer the factory look from the over paintable stuff but as it's behind the sill cover it doesn't matter.


There was a decent amount of crap behind the side panels and behind the wing.



And this was how I left it,planning to prep the bits that need painting on the body tomorrow and would hope to get all the plastic stuff/ bumpers painted too.

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 2nd September 2014
quotequote all
Cheers chaps,I can't stand those chrome arches! I need to get a few parts in the near future too,the N/S indicator is cracked and the grille has also seen better days,it's also missing a tow eye cover from the front bumper. Just spent an hour or so organising the service history and receipts/old mot's/tax discs etc in to a file. Wife called me a geek,she's probably right!

Edited by schuey on Tuesday 2nd September 21:15

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Thursday 4th September 2014
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Been busy today but neglected to take any pictures as I was having a nightmare! Ran out of masking tape,went to paint shop for some only to get back and discover I had no primer left. Grrr. My favourite spray gun then decided it would be a good time to leak big drips of lacquer on the parts I was painting furious
So I got the plastic panels painted and the bumpers in the contrasting blue,however I did them with normal shiny 2k lacquer rather than the satin they should be in,mainly because someone had already done that on the passenger side and I don't like satin finishes as they look rubbish!
I also prepped the other bits of the body I will be painting tomorrow,losing the will to live with prep work....
The only pic I took,you can see the big splashes of clear on the brown paper.

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Friday 5th September 2014
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carinaman said:
But sadly it's the prep that makes it isn't it?
Yep,that's why bodywork costs so much. Also the reason I was a painter and not a panel beater in previous life!

schuey

Original Poster:

705 posts

210 months

Tuesday 9th September 2014
quotequote all
Been a bit slack updating this,car was put back together on Saturday morning in a rush as I was back at work on Monday. Still some jobs to do,I need to get some new number plates as these are tatty,then make a start on the interior. I could also do with repairing the bumper inserts as they have a few scuffs,but not as obvious when covered in shiny stuff.
Dug some old tapes out too so I can endure the awful stereo!