Daggro

Hello everyone. I just purchased a 1982 380SL from an older gentleman who went to church with my dad. It's mostly rust free but the original paint isn't the greatest. It has one spot of rust the size of a quarter bubbled up inside the drivers door in the bottom corner above the trim. The seller was quick to point out it "only had 41k miles" and it looked like it was in good condition. Now that I have it home I went through the glovebox and found a receipt from a repair shop with his name on it from 2013. The mileage written on the receipt was 54k miles. Listed in the repairs was "speedometer rebuild". So I guess it's a safe assumption that rather than 41k miles this car actually has at least 95k miles on it. In light of that are there any major maintenance intervals I need to verify have been performed? Are there any common problems I need to check for? The car runs pretty good apart from an irregular idle that always seems too fast or two slow., It's died in traffic on me once but only once. The oil pressure seems fine and it shifts smoothly enough. The muffler has a hole rusted in it so it will need replaced and there are some clunky ball joints up front but other than that and the idle issue it seems like a decent car. I paid him $7,000 for it FWIW.

Any advice on how to proceed from here is appreciated.

Thanks!

sturitter

Step 1 is to check the timing chain and see if there is a double row chain in there. The 380 engine from 81-83, in the USA, had a single row chain and they are known to break. There were modified cam sprockets but they didn't seem to help because the other sprockets wore. When I had my shop I told my customers they should either convert to a double row timing chain (expensive) or sell the car.

Stu