Disassembly begins. Well, sorta.

Saturday I began the long process of taking the old Merc apart. A very slow start, though.

First task was to remove the rubber mats along each side of the car. These mats were one rubber, but they've since turned into something crunchy. :/ It took a little while to get these out, as they would come way in pieces of various sizes. It took some poking with a flathead screwdriver to get some sections to come loose.

First the driver's door area.

I'm hoping this is the worst of the rust. It's by far the worst I've found so far. This area will need to be cut out and replaced in some fashion, I imagine.

I could swear I saw an illustration of this area in some of the documentation that this is a separate piece that can be removed - and that row of screws makes sense in that regard. I'm hoping I'm right on that, and perhaps I can find someone who has a parts car with this piece intact that they're willing to part with.

Miller's has some items listed under the category "Sheetmetal Floorpans", but the illustrations attached to these parts are all the same, just an illustration of a bunch of pieces with part numbers - completely unhelpful.

The driver's side rear and passenger side front mats came off about as easily as the first, and the metal underneath is in fine shape.

But, I found a bit more rust beneath the passenger side rear mat:

It looks like it's just surface rust, but no telling 'til I dig deeper. No obvious holes like with the driver's door side.

(Note to self: Possible source for inexpensive mat replacement)

Next task was to remove the door armrests. These bits have obviously seen better days.

The padding area beneath the cover has dried out completely. Quite nasty.

The top part is removed by removing two screws from beneath. You can see a pair of the screws sitting in the shell of this armrest, where my cousin had left them when he removed the cover from this one.

Another shot of the top portion, this time out in some natural light. Note the lovely duct tape repair job attempted at one point.

The most intact of the four armrest covers, though the padding beneath feels equally as crunchy.

The covers and padding are obviously in need of replacement. I'll be stripping them off and holding onto the plastic shells. I imagine I'll keep this last mostly-intact armrest as-is for the duration, so I can use it to illustrate how these should look.

I'm unsure as to what route to take with these bits. I don't know whether I'll need to, or even be able to, get new armrests. And the issue there is matching the interior. I'll likely have to wait until I get to that point - replacing the covers on the seats and the door panels. I imagine whoever I find to help with the upholstery would be able to handle the armrests as well, if given the shell pieces and the mostly-intact armrest to use as an example. We'll see.