1975 450SL - Charity Case

So it begins...

I have always liked these cars.  My mother had a euro 280sl  with a 5-speed.  If you can find the euro bumpers they look great.  good luck i am looking forward to seeing how this goes.

It looks pretty solid from here.  I like the color.

I'd go more for the look of the Mercedes that Wheeler Dealers fixed up a couple seasons ago:

Whenever I see a 450SL of that vintage the first thing that pops into my mind is "Hart to Hart".  

Great looking car. I like the color too. Good luck!

Following with interest. 

In reply to stuart in mn :

my mothers was red but looked just about like that.  i love the euro bumpers and lights.

I absolutely love this body style of SL, specifically the SLC, despite the fact that I've never heard anything that remotely makes them sound sporty or truly fun to drive. Nevertheless, I will have one someday. Good luck with the project and enjoy the car.

In reply to AngryCorvair :

What's the plan? I've fixed up a few R107s. They make nice cruisers.

bgkast said:

What's the plan? I've fixed up a few R107s. They make nice cruisers.

Do you still have your red one? 

Definitely go after the Euro look like Wheeler Dealers did.  These cars look so much better with the euro bumpers and lights.

Thank you for the comments so far. I didn’t mean to leave you all hanging with just the teaser first post. So here it goes:

I bought the car at auction as a charity donated vehicle. Final hammer price: $950. After receiving it at my house ($120 flatbed tow including tip about 60 miles from auction location) it actually fired right up. First observations are that it has a surging idle and clunky engagement into reverse gear. This was visually confirmed by a nice puddle of transmission fluid in my drip pan after sitting for a few days. So far it has just been sitting in my garage awaiting attention. While waiting the fuel hose from the tank to the fuel damper split and started leaking fuel so I drained all of the gas and my next step is pulling out the tank to replace fuel hoses as well as the in tank strainer.

Pleasant surprises are that is has a battery marked 4/16 and Michelin Defender tires marked 30th week of 2014 with plenty of tread and no dry rot or cracks.

docwyte said:

Definitely go after the Euro look like Wheeler Dealers did.  These cars look so much better with the euro bumpers and lights.

I would love to do the euro look. Unless I find a '73 at a junkyard or getting parted out by someone it probably won't be in the cards. All of the ebay sets that I see end up going for north of 1 grand plus shipping.

I worked for a guy who had one of these.  He had a Camaro subframe welded in, then a SBC installed.  Somewhat easy, and well done.  Eliminated most of the MB difficulty, and turned it into Chevy simplicity.  

In reply to Kramer :

Nothing in these cars is difficult. It should be running Bosch d-jet or k-jet. Once you learn it these cars are even easier to maintain. Peachparts and benzworld has millions of threads on maintaining 70-80s era Mercedes. 

In reply to yupididit :

Now it’s easy but before the internet you’d have an easier time finding an actual rocket scientist than getting someone that could keep European fuel injection working right.

Wally said:

In reply to yupididit :

Now it’s easy but before the internet you’d have an easier time finding an actual rocket scientist than getting someone that could keep European fuel injection working right.

I'm only 29, I don't know this internetless age you speak of lol. Plus, how hard these were to work on before the internet is irrelevant. That can be said about kajillion of other things. Next someone will state how hard it was to travel to Japan before airplanes LMAO 

In reply to TacoTuesday : I’ve seen two of those in track ready condition. They really have an elegant look to them and apparently it’s not that hard to put a manual transmission in them. One was a euro spec car with a ZF  and the other had a T5 adapted.  

The Euro spec guy raced his in autocross while the T5 guy was planning on wheel to wheel  with his local club  

In reply to yupididit :

That dark pre-internet time was when Chevy swaps were common to get rid of pesky European fuel injection.  All we understood when something went wrong was put a carb on it.  If you did try to fix the injection you’d have to go to the dealer’s parts counter and have some wormy little guy tell you that you probably weren’t smart enough to understand what you were doing anyway.

In reply to Wally :

LMAO I'm glad I was born when I was, for various reasons! 

OP I think Tuetone on benzworld has some r107 euro bumpers for a decent price in SoCal. 

That is a stupendous car for $950!

Love me some R107. I presume you know the Dkubus guys? They make some R107 specific goodies.

frenchyd said:

In reply to TacoTuesday : I’ve seen two of those in track ready condition. They really have an elegant look to them and apparently it’s not that hard to put a manual transmission in them. One was a euro spec car with a ZF  and the other had a T5 adapted.  

The Euro spec guy raced his in autocross while the T5 guy was planning on wheel to wheel  with his local club  

 

I remember seeing Doc Bundy racing a 450SL in SCCA GT-1 at Brainerd back in the late 1970s.

Had a 450SL once.  And the later 560SL.  Both were great cars to drive- relaxed cruisers, with "adequate" power.  Both sucked gas- 12-14 mpg was common.  The convertible top is aggravating and the hardtop is heavy and bulky.  The A/C worked when it wanted to, the heat never did.  Electrical hobgoblins plagued me continuously.  

Ultimately, the lack of a back seat (and me having kids) caused me to get rid of them.  Don't really miss them.  They were built like tanks, but Lord they were needy.