jerhofer

When I was installing the cruise control, I discovered that there was a footwell light. I had pulled off the cover to discover that the bulb was missing. Today I finally got around to installing a bulb only to discover that the light fixture was broken. It looks like heat failure over time. It does still work but I would like to replace it. Unfortunately, the part has been discontinued. Does anyone happen to have one of these light fixtures? By the way, Mercedes's name for the part is "leg room lamp". part #108-825-01-42.

ffr2014

There are a couple listed on eBay.

Love following your work on your beautiful 280SEL.

jerhofer

I searched eBay, both here and in Germany, and did not come up with this light. Can you give me a link, please? Thanks.

jerhofer

I was able to find a photo of the part.

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ffr2014

Sorry but just saw general listings which showed correct part number but when looking at specific item, it was no longer available. Good luck with search.

jerhofer

I retrieved the exhaust manifold heat shields from the powder coater yesterday. It was $20 well spent. They were installed today.









And today I picked up the hubcaps from the polisher. The one section of curb rash was pretty deep and had actually compressed the metal a bit. He did the best he could with it looking much better than before. The rest of the curb rash disappeared. He removed the paint, polished the star but did not polish the painted areas. They should be ready for my paint guy when I take the car in after Thanksgiving.

jerhofer

I removed the compensator spring and replaced it with my newly rebuilt hydropneumatic compensator. From the digital service manual file, I printed the instructions.




I began by placing jack stands at both rear suspension points. I then removed both shocks and then let the rear suspension droop as far as possible while making sure I did not stretch the rubber brake lines. The left side was the one to watch as there was sufficient length in the right side.













The instructions say to install a spring compressor on the compensator spring. My spring compressor claws were just a bit too large as I could only get one end inserted. I tried the single claw end first and, after that didn't work, I tried the other double claw end. I was able to insert one of those claws only but then could not remove the compressor from the spring. However, I could rotate the spring with my hand so I knew it was not under a great deal of pressure. So I gingerly removed one of the bolts. Nothing moved. However, as soon as I loosened the other bolt, the mount rotated and the spring released with some force. Not a great deal but it still surprised me. And it was out.









These are the parts that came with the rebuilt hydro compensator.




I removed the old rubber bushing and inserted the new one. After inserting the compensator shaft into the hole, I slipped the shiny new metal piece onto the shaft, screwed on the nut and tightened it.












The instructions called for installing one bolt and then jacking up the suspension to line up the other hole. That worked well and I soon had the other bolts in place. After fixing the rubber boot to the shaft end of the compensator, replacing the shocks was the only thing left to do.









I needed some gas so I drove uptown to settle the suspension. Once I had the car back in the garage, I could see that I now had some negative camber, as it should. I forgot to take a before photo of the camber but it was decidedly positive. The ride height is now correct as well.

jerhofer

A problem developed today!!




Because I still have a very small leak on the rear end, I drove the car about fifty miles to the independent repair shop that had worked on the rear end. I have always had a slight driveline vibration and I have inspected the flex disc a number of times and it always looked OK. In fact, it did not appear to be very old. It was not on my list on the previous visit but the mechanic had looked at it then and did not see an issue. He had the same thoughts about the age of the disc.

The vibration was getting worse recently and was on my list of things to have him check out today. I took the photo above on his lift this morning. At least I know what the problem is. I was very fortunate to dodge a much bigger problem had it completely come apart. If I had looked at it yesterday after installing the hydro compensator, I might have caught it then.

jerhofer

I picked up the car today. The mechanic told me that the driveline was smooth as silk on acceleration but there was some vibration when you lift off the gas, which I found to be true. His suspicion is the center drive shaft support bushing and bearing. He also mentioned needing the bearing housing. The bushing and bearing are available but the housing is not. Tom at Mercedes Classic said in all the years he has been selling Mercedes parts, he has never sold one of the bearing housings. So I may not need that. I have the other two parts on the way.

Here are some photos of the flex disc and the center locator bushing(not sure what you call it). The mechanic did not think the flex disc was very old and he thinks the center bushing was defective. Since the bushing did not center the flex disc properly, he thinks that is what caused it to come apart. This is also a part that is NLA. However, he has a number of cars that he is parting out and found a good one on one of the drive shafts. He showed me a very similar part from a later car that is off just a few thousandth's from fitting. Of course, that is all it takes to make the part non-compatible.









The rear end leak was coming from the bottom drain plug. He removed it, resealed it and replaced the fluid. On my list this time was the non-working kick down switch. The defective switch was another NLA part but he found one on one of his cars that still worked. It is nice to have the kick down working. I was following my wife as we left his place and she forged ahead of me on an on-ramp. I floored the throttle and was rewarded with the best acceleration I have yet experienced with this car. It ran it up to 80 plus on the speedometer before shifting up (my speedo reads about 6mph fast). This is the old switch.



And so another couple items are fixed. I am certainly glad I found this mechanic. He started his shop 35 years ago so he has tons of experience. He works on newer Mercedes's as well. When I took the car back with the rear end leak, he was not the least bit defensive of his earlier work. His response was let's pull the car in and see what we can find.

Best part of all is that he is a truly nice guy who always has a smile on his face. With his big white beard, I am sure he receives lots of requests to play Santa!!!

jerhofer

Rather than be glued to my recliner for four hours of NASCAR, I decided to head to the garage, turn on the TV and complete a couple of projects on the Mercedes.

First up was replacing the footwell light. The new light came with a cable with two ends but it appeared I would have to disassemble quite a bit to get to where those ends were connected. To save time, I cut the wires and spliced in the new harness. I installed the LED bulb which worked well.














On a drive last week I noticed I did not have sound coming out of the left side speakers. I pulled out the radio and discovered that another speaker plug had failed. This is the second one as I had a defective one when Becker shipped me the radio. Rather than get another plug from them, I decided that I wanted to use a different type. They arrived a couple days ago and I installed them today. These plugs have a screw off top and fasten the wires with small set screws. Now I have sound out of both sides again. The first photo is of the type that have failed.













To make room for my cars, I put the Benz on the lift so I could park a car under it. The rear end was completely dry so that appears to be in order. I snapped a photo of the new flex disc for posterity.




Since my son works for Toyota Racing Development, I was rooting for Toyota and, in particular, Martin Truex. It was a good day!! With the season he had, he deserved to win. I assume there will be bonus money for the TRD people as Toyota had a great year. My son says they are great people to work for.

jerhofer

Monday the car goes in to the body shop for some paintwork to fix up a few small things on the car as well as paint the hubcap centers. I installed my recently polished hubcaps that had the paint removed. It actually looks pretty darn good without paint.

ffr2014

Beautiful!

jerhofer

I picked up the car from the body shop a couple days ago and am very pleased with the work.

I had a small dent in the lower part of the left rear quarter. Earlier this year, the paintless dent removal guy had taken the dent out but the pain was cracked.






The other area I had repaired was the radiator support where there was surface rust on the top in the latch area and on the lower part from stone chips.












I decided to go with the Harvest Beige on the hubcaps. I had purchased the tool to mask off the star on a hubcaps.

jerhofer

January turned out to be an inspired choice for vacationing in our motorhome in Ft Myers, FL. Our area experienced much lower temperatures than normal as well as 5" of snow. It was cool the first week in FL but still in the 60's.

Now that I am back, I have only a few things to do to the car. First up was replacing the decal on the radiator support that was removed during the painting process.




As was discussed earlier when the flex disc was replaced, I ordered the driveshaft bearing and donut. I had them replaced by the same shop that did the flex disc. The photos below show some deformity in the donut. The bearing wasn't defective but did not turn as easily as I thought it should. Now I do not have any vibration when I lift off the gas.



I also had the shop do a compression test.



I have a couple other things to try to fix before I list the car on BAT. When I got the car back from the bodyshop, the electric antenna no longer goes completely down. About eight inches is still showing. Need to dig into that.

Also, I cannot get the windshield washer to work. When i depress the floor switch, the wipers come on but no fluid is being pumped. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

jerhofer

Soon after I joined the Porsche club in 1978, I met a fellow member and his son. The son was in college studying to become a mechanical engineer. His father passed away some years ago but I have always stayed in touch with him. He and my son, who is also a mechanical engineer, have also stayed in touch.

A few years ago, the son contracted a neurological disease that affects his lower extremities. It has progressed to the point that he now has to use a wheelchair. I was aware of his difficulties but on a visit to Indiana last December, I learned from another of my friends that he was using a wheelchair.

So I gave him a call to see how he was doing. He has a great attitude about his disease. It is not ALS and progresses much slower than that disease. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he had recently sold the 1986 911 turbo look that he had inherited from his father. Another mutual friend was talking about buying his 356. I knew he had an original Porsche 914-6.

I did not know that he also had a 1974 914 that had been converted to a six cylinder motor. In 2004, steel GT flares had been installed by a 914 guru from Tennessee who also did the paintwork. Re-inforcing plates had been installed along with the flares. The bumpers were backdated to the earlier bumpers on the original 914-6's. The interior was also redone at that time.

Ed purchased the car in 2005. At a drivers ed event at Grattan he broke the transmission. Out came the engine and transmission. He took the transmission to another 914 guru in Illinois for a rebuild. That transmission is still in the shipping bag from 2005 as the engine and transmission have never been re-installed.

He also has 18 wheels along with assorted parts that he needs to be rid of in his garage. We reached an agreement on a price for everything and I will be traveling to Michigan in a couple months to pick it up. And so another project has found me!!! I am excited about putting it back together as the motor was rebuilt to specs that should have it making 250-275HP. It will be much faster than the Mercedes.

Later Porsche Boxster wheels are shown in some of the photos below but I will be installing the traditional Fuchs that also come with the car. These photos were taken in 2005 just before the transmission issue.

jerhofer

When I picked up the car from the body shop last month, I noticed that the antenna would not go all the way down when I turned off the radio. It protruded about 8". We were getting ready to drive our motorhome to Florida so I did not look into it at that time.

I did look at it this past weekend and this is what I found. Evidently I left the radio on when I turned off the motor at the body shop so the antenna was in the up position. Someone at the body shop must have wanted to put it down and tried to do that manually. He bent the antenna at the base which would not allow it to go down.



So I ordered a Fleischman antenna and installed it today. I kept the exterior trim ring from the old antenna as the new one had a smaller diameter which would have left a paint mark revealed.








I talked to body shop owner yesterday and he is going to pay for the new antenna.

jerhofer

In preparation for selling the car, I decided to place a thermometer into the AC ducts to measure how cold the air was. It registered 25 degrees!!! No wonder my wife said it was freezing in the car. She was literally correct!!

jerhofer

I borrowed my son's Go Pro to make a test drive video. Wish I had one of these back when I was doing track events. I used a regular video camera. The recording heads did not like vibration. I used every trick I could think of to insulate the camera from vibration with only some success. Unsurprisingly, the best videos happened on the smoothest tracks. And of course there was no HD. However, it is still fun to occasionally watch them.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX-o...ature=youtu.be

jerhofer

The car is on Bring a Trailer.