Why do anyone publish photos of a rusty, dirty old car, partly in pieces? Well, there are two reasons:
The latter reason may be a little incorrect. Some stuff has of course been done to the car during the years. I'll try to pin-point the deviations below. If you find things here that you find strange, contact me for clarification. The good thing is that we have someone to ask, my father. He can tell us if he has produced the deviation from what you/I believe to be the right thing. If not - it should be original, at least on my car...
You have to bear in mind that a lot of things aren't equal when you compare this car with other cars. I've found out - for example - that the color in the coupe (the dark grey paint) differs from car to car as well as how joints/seams in the motor compartment has been puttied.
On these pages, you'll not find detailed explanations on how to restore this and that, just some pictures and hints to give you an idea of what I've gone through. If you're gonna do this yourself you definitely need Mercedes-Benz original spare parts list, the shop manual (three parts) as well as the Tabellenbuch. Buy the old editions or the re-prints from Classic Centre. Then I suppose you need some tools, time, money and understanding relatives and friends. But if you don't get the books I mentioned, I think it is very hard to accomplish much and you will have spoiled your time, money, relatives and friends for nothing.
I've tried to get answers to my question about how everything really looked like and how it was done from a wealth of well-informed and experienced persons (like the two MB mailing lists) and well known companies. What I've found out is that there is no single truth. Mercedes-Benz AB in Malmö and Bernats Bil in Stockholm has been able to help me with some information. They still got some mechanics that worked during "the good old days", but a lot have been forgotten, unfortunately. Conclusion, there are as many answers that there are persons asked! I'm lucky, I can go back to my own memory, my pictures or my father to try to find out how this and that ought to be done.
The pictures are of course too few. You can never-never-never take too many pictures during a restoration. But luckily I also have a small pile of drawings that I made during the dismantling. If you're interested I'll try to publish these as well.
What's more than embarrassing, is that Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre doesn't care to answer my faxes and nor my mails, not even with a "sorry, no time for this!". Thanks a lot Stuttgart, maybe only Gullwings and 540Ks are interesting...
I've forgotten when I started this work but I think it was in 1991 or 1992 and it started in the car's living room since 1966, my parents garage. Taking it apart is one thing, then you decide how long each activity is going to take. But when you start to restore things the duration of your activities are in the hands of spare parts suppliers, mechanics, welders, tool shops, wise guys, mailing lists, friends etc. On top of that you need to find out what new tools you'll need for dismantling the item, what parts to buy and from whom, waiting for them to arrive, waiting for screws to come back from finishing, during assembly finding out that something is missing (and starting all over again with that part), finding the correct paint and lustre, buying the correct paint, wondering why the workshop manual tells me to do it in this or that way and confirming it somewhere (thanks Ponton-list), etc, etc. That takes a h-ll of a time!
The process (waiting or whatever you would like to call) I describe above normally takes 2-3 months, effective working days are however 2-5. Hence, I normally run 4-5 items in parallel so that I can work on one item while waiting for something for the others. Running more than 4-5 different items has turned out to be quite hard, too many small bags and loose parts in the garage, to many things to have in memory or on small notes etc. So during 3-4 months it seems like nothing is happening. And then, bang, after this period the garage is glimmering with another set of items in a condition like new. That's a fantastic feeling.
As you may already understand, since I'm not finished yet I have no idea how long time a restoration of a MB219 takes. If it'll take me 15 years it may take you 5 or 20 years, all depending on your wallet's size, your partners interest/indulgence, your normal work, if you decide to create a homepage in parallel and so on.
Hmm, putty on top of the paint around the spare wheel recess as well as sound proofing. More closely to the centerpiece, not visible on the photo, were also sound proofing material in the stiffening corrugations.
These photos lies a little bit. In reality, the color is more dark grey than it appears to be here. Observe the blue paint around the rear window!
These photos have a more correct gray color. Here you can also see the reparation solution for the thrust arms.
Coupe dark grey, almost everywhere, but look at the glove compartment. I cannot remember if it was black or DB7164, Tiefdunkel grau, probably the first one. Send me a mail if you know!
These two pictures are supposed to show you the anit-squeek in the roof (jute felt with paper filler). But it also gave me an opportunity to display myself again, still having hair in the face as well as on the head. The latter is now gone, RIP.
Here goes the motor and gear box. I didn't use the "standard procedure", to remove the motor together with the front axle support. I wanted to be able to move the car around easily... And no, the motor is not supposed to be red. My father painted it in this color when he made a general overhaul of the engine. Reason; rust in one or two cylinders due to a longer stand-still 1978.
Forget the color of the master cylinder and the tank for the brake fluid. They "changed" when I restored the brakes, years ago... But if someone could guide me with the correct, dark blue, color code of the master cylinder I would be a lot happier!
Yes, wrong hose clamps, my fault...
I wish to point out that I have a new, complete cable set for the car, with the original color on all the cables as well as the original cotton coating. Included are wiring for all the options that I could find at that time, including radio, motor compartment light and towing hook. I bought it by Krieg Kabelbäume in 1994.
As mentioned above I dismantled the car in my parents garage. You can imagine what my father thought about this process... That's why I in 1994 had it transported to Mårten. He had the space needed for the rest of the work on the chassis, knowledge about the rest of the restoration process as well as contacts for welding and painting.
This is how it looked like before I started the grinding. The chassis has recently been stripped from it's front axle support but does still have the rear axle mounted. The rear axle was taken off in April 2001.
