Body work and paint done (mostly)

Sadly, I lost a few months of photos with a phone reset (corrupted backup, meh!).

 

Prepping for transport down to the paint stripper...

 

Aaaaand like magic, it's all done!

The body and other parts at my friend's shop. Work has progressed on the body parts at this point. Lots of little dings and such, plus apparently inferior body work done on some panels in the distant past that Paul addressed.

A lot of body work is in the cards. 

To my surprise, Paul is hot to get my car done and out of his shop - he needs the room! I was expecting to be waiting on this for some months. So the first few body pieces - hood, trunk, front fenders - come home via our respective vehicles.

The fenders now keep my beer cellar stash company. Cat for scale.

Not so long later, Paul texts me. "Hey I'm ready to get your body out of my shop on Saturday". It's Thursday. Oboy. So I scramble to find the relevant pieces to attach the front subframe and rear axle back onto the body, so we can roll it around on wheels.

Folks on the Ponton group suggest throwing 2x4s in between the body and the rear axle for support, seeing as the thrust arms (well, one - the other is giving me fits) are off and there's no putting the springs/shocks back in for proper support. The rear end is a little bow-legged but it works like a champ!

And that's where I am currently. The body is back in my garage. Paul still has the doors (I think he was in a bit of a hurry and painted them without really examining them for dings - he's redoing those and I'll be collecting them soon). I'll be extracting the front subframe and rear axle again and putting the body back up on jackstands. I expect my next big project will be disassembly of said subframe and axle, to get the main structural parts out to be cleaned up. Paul mentioned that since the springs are nearly sixty years old, they may have "sag" and need replacing - I'll be researching this. I'd rather not have more parts to buy on top of the billion bits of rubber and all the replacement hardware I'll be bleeding money to acquire over the next year or so. I'll also be getting some paint that Paul suggested to cover the interior of the body, the trunk and engine compartment. That'll be a long arduous task with a paintbrush - he mentioned buying an airbrush and cutting the paint a bit so it flows through, I may well go that route!

Back In The Saddle, part three

After a looooong hiatus, I'm back on the Mercedes project.

I see that the last post (from six years ago, meh!) was on pulling the tranny. Obviously more happened after that. I roped a fellow who lives nearby into bringing over his engine hoist, and we got the engine out and onto a stand, and then not long later, with the help of neighbor Frank, I got the front subframe detached. And then... nothing. Nothing for five years but dust. I had hit the point where it was time to start spending some serious funds, but worse for me, I had hit the point where I had to start making real decisions - what shops to use, what people to trust.

Fortunately, about a year and a half ago, I met a gal at a happy hour, who I kinda took up with for a good while, and along with meeting her that night, I met a friend of hers she'd came with, Paul, who has an auto repair/resto shop. Seems to know his stuff pretty well. That's Paul's trailer that the Mercedes is on - he took the time yesterday to roll over and get the body and various parts transported down to Golden (about a half hour or so south) to a paint stripping shop, the same one neighbor Frank used years ago on his Karmann Ghia project. Once everything's cleaned up, it'll all go over to Paul's shop where he's going to handle the body work - cutting out the rusted areas and patching, and pounding out some spots on three of the four fenders, then the paint.

Thanks to the recommendation of a former neighbor, I've got a fellow in mind for the engine rebuild. He quoted me $4k-$8k for that, gah! It'll depend on the severity of the project. I'm expecting more on the high end.

For the first time since late 2009, I can actually park my truck in my garage! Though I still have to deal with the front subframe and rear axle assembly, tearing those down and starting the cleanup and rebuild. Not sure if I'm going to have the square footage for both truck and those parts of the car, we'll see.

I'm going to try and start keeping this blog updated more regularly again, now that I've finally gotten off my ass and back on this project. I'm sure all two of you will be thrilled. :)