Below you can see how all the pedals looks like today. The first one is the clutch and the rest from the gas pedal.
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In the first picture you can see the original paint. The car is black so the wheel is black on the outside. I thought that it should be like that on the backside too. But as you can see it wasn't. The color is equal to the brown-grey paint I had in my interior. As with the interior I used a color for Opel/Vauxhall (Spies Hecker A-0158 L109 89383 brown) after sandblasting them. Of course the outside was black! The second picture shows you a painted wheel with refurbished and yellow chromated pressure springs and pins. The locking plates are new. Also the collar nuts are blasted and grinded and now yellow, however not seen on these pictures. Next part to restoration will of course be the wheel covers.
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Well, what to say about these ones? Not much, sandblasted the steering lever, painted it with DB7164 and changed the sealing ring! Everything else was in order. And with the coupling it was the same. The joint disk was kept, the grounding cable is however new. The screws were grinded and yellow plated.
Everyone that I've spoken have said "no, don't dismantle the steering box, there's never nothing wrong with those". I'm very glad I did and it wasn't difficult either. You do however need some special tools as well as a strong arm when you remove the pitman arm as well as when you put it back! And with a bit of luck, it isn't expensive either! I didn't have luck... And please, don't forget to mark every parts position, take photos and draw a lot of sketches of everything.
This one took some time. The first thing that didn't work was the removal of the pitman arm. I broke two standard pullers before I understood that there were special pitman arm pullers. They were however much too expensive so I handed the steering box over to Mercedes-Benz/Bernats Bil in Västberga and Rulle. On the same time he unfastened the 55mm nut that locks the adjusting ring on top of the steering box. Well, no wonder that I couldn't remove the pitman arm myself though, the nut is tightened with 250Nm. For the assembly I bought a new torque wrench, a big one as well as an equally big 55mm wrench.
Forget that you ever seen the tool on the second picture. It worked OK but I bought a better tool for the assembly! Well, what does the third, low quality picture show you? Maybe a dirty inside of a steering box. The fourth picture shows you one way to remove the inner rings of the bearings from the steering worm (?). And here comes the costs if you're not lucky. These bearings are a special type, however still available. There is no other bearing manufacturer anywhere in the world making an equivalent to this FAG bearing. That compels the conclusion that FAG makes these bearings in small quantities for Mercedes only. There is probably no other application for this particular bearing. Soooo, you'll have to pay something like $100-145 for it! So if you find a bearing with the following label, buy it if it costs less than above - and you're planning to restore your steering box of course:
"FAG F (or E) Germany FOR 502619", original MB-number 000 981 03 18
According to FAG it was later replaced by a bearing called 502619B. This bearing was also used in the truck L408 (1966-) as well as in their busses O319D+B (1966 - ). Its measurements are:
* Inner diameter: 19,6 mm
* Outer diameter: 44,475 mm
* Width (?):14,448 mm
One of my bearings was in a very bad condition, the other one was almost OK, according to my father it was still usable and would last the rest of the cars life. Feeling a bit ashamed I ordered only one bearing. (Un)fortunately, Karasch, who offered the best price by far, sent me two bearings. A lot of money poorer (compared to what I got so to speak), I was a very happy steering box restorer!
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And here's everything, either brand new or cleaned and painted or yellow plated. When assembling bearing rings you must have god connection to the one who rules in the kitchen. Put the part that you want to shrink (in case with the steering worm; the shaft ) in the freezer, and the part that you want to expand (in the case with the steering worm; the inner ring of the bearing, in the case with one of the outer rings; the whole steering box) in the oven. Then drop the hot part on/in the cold part, finalize it with a couple of distinct blows on the ring (in this case...). I used a hammer on a "soft" brass stick or tube.
Give yourself some time when you adjust the pressure screw and re-check it when you have tightened the nut. And enjoy yourself when you tighten the nut for the pitman arm with 250Nm, without risking the steering worm. The last picture shows you the almost complete steering box. Some detailing still remains.
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The heater boxes are made out of card board and is often found damaged by wear, tear, moisture, heat, dirt and leaning elbows. Buying new in descent shape is expensive. From MB you can buy new ones made of glass fibre, they are not cheap either. My boxes had also seen their better days but in my opinion worth saving. What you see below is my version of the restoration instructions found on the Mercedes-Benz Ponton Page.
We take if from the beginning. The first picture shows you one - I think it is the left - with markings from someone's elbow, probably leaning on it trying to remove plugs or adjusting the distributor. Both were sandblasted and repaired with papier mache according to the instructions from the Ponton pages. The papier mache was from a recipe based on boiled, hand-torn strips of newspaper, white glue, chalk and linseed oil. The result was much harder and durable than I could have imagined. It was a pain to sand it down to the correct shape. The boxes were thereafter painted inside out (soaked) in a thin mixture of a marine 2k epoxy primer, Hempel Light Primer 45551, hopefully giving it good moisture protection. Then they were puttied and sanded a couple of times before I thought they were ready for the final protection and last - but not least - the black paint (fifth and sixth picture). From the fourth picture you can see that I tried to make this boring work as nice as possible, at our country house at Eklången, close to Eskilstuna. Unfortunately the black paint showed some bad spots so on with some more putty and back to the sandpaper. And then we came to the status shown in the last picture.
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Coming so far I turned to the assembly of the flaps. One advice I can give you before you give the boxes their last, black paint; try the flaps so that you haven't used too much papier mache somewhere... I started the adjustments with a lot of sanding on the inside but it was a scary experience since I didn't want to risk to crack the finished outer surface. Instead I went for another solution which is to smooth the edges of the flap instead. It was certainly easier, gave more control and gave a better result. Then we got some detailing to do. In order to seal the flaps, otherwise they're not tight enough against the sides of the boxes letting air into the coupe in, you use felt. In Sweden you can find the exact type and thickness (3mm) at Panduro Hobby.
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The same type of felt is also used on the underside of the insect screen. Note here that the second picture of the insect screen points to that it wasn't black but probably white cad. My white cad finishing actually was very bad due to bad preparation from my side. Looking at other cars I decided that black would probably be ok too... Inside the tightening strap for the air duct you use a 1mm felt.
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The heat exchangers were dismantled. When I blew them with compressed air I had a large pile of yellow/black crud on the floor. They had probably not been restored since new. The radiator guy wanted almost 200USD for cleaning and pressure test them. Since there isn't a shortage of used heat exchangers on the market I decided to try do this restoration myself. A failure wouldn't cause an expensive problem (for once...).
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The workshop manual says to pour 5% P3-Lye into the cooler and then drive around for a day. I haven't found out what P3-Lye is or where to get it so I went for caustic soda instead (100% Sodium Hydroxide). To drive around for a day was something that I really would have liked to do - if it had been possible. Instead I boiled the heaters for four hours in a mixture of caustic soda, shaking them each 10-15 minutes and changing the caustic soda three times. The first time I was afraid of the consequences of boiling the heaters in lye so I took only 2-3%. Nothing corrosive happened so the two last times I used a mixture of 5%. Between each time I rinsed them thoroughly, shaking them to get all the oil and crap out (and that was a lot) etc, etc...
Do not forget to use protective glasses and gloves! And if you decide to try my method; note that the caustic soda is highly aggressive/corrosive to aluminium, the material that is used in for example the Ponton's cylinder head!! So rinse the heat exchanger thoroughly before connecting them to the coolant system again! Above all, you follow my example on your own risk
Now when they're clean it was time to go for the limestone. First they had two water baths with vinegar to neutralize the lye and then I let them lie in a new, fresh mixture of water and vinegar over-night. Observe, it's no use doing this before having cleaned the heaters. Vinegar can't get to the limestone under layers of fat, oil and crud. I probably had 3-4 table spoons more of limestone gravel loose from each unit during and after this process!
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After this they were like new when I looked down the regulating valve. Of course, I can't say anything about how the elements look like further down but I doubt - based on everything I got out of them - that there is anything wrong with them now. So, time for the next activity; pressure check.
I bought a set of rubber hoses (actually hydraulic hoses which made the purchase unnecessary expensive). The set consists of two hoses, fitting the lower connection and the regulating valve respectively. One of them got a nipple for a bicycle pump with an air pressure gauge. The other one was open so that I could check if the regulating valve was air tight (the hose is of course supposed to be under the water in contrast with what the second picture shows). With a bicycle pump the test is of course quite inexact but I don't think it matters. If I remember correctly, the system is to be able to be tested at 1,6 bar, I used 2-3 bars. I found only one leak, one of the lower connections was bent which obviously had caused a crack. I bent it back and soldered it = fixed. Beside of that everything was 100% tight! So, instead of paying the equivalent of 200USD I reached 30USD - the hydraulic hoses taking most of that cost - and a couple of interesting hours. The following picture shows you the rest, cleaning, painting and assembling.
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Not much to say here than "before, during and after restoration". Note the small rivet that fix the wings/rubber mountings for the blower motor to the surrounding white cad'ed "house". This "house" is in its turn fixed to the outer, black ring with three screws. The fan blade is secured to the axle with a small pin bolt. The motor was cleaned, checked for functionality and the two "bearings" inside each lubricated. I was actually rust inside the motor housing due to inadequate drainage. I drilled two more holes and had some Dinol ML in them. The rubber mountings were glass beaded, cleaned and then soaked in liquid paraffin for a couple of days.
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These pictures don't say much, I'm only very satisfied with the end result.
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