I sort of bought a car that sort of runs. A 1998 SLK230 looks like a good deal at night.

you are gonna need to bring in more teammates to help you drive your fleet, or at least get them to the track

stafford1500 said:

you are gonna need to bring in more teammates to help you drive your fleet, or at least get them to the track

I accept your offer to join the team. Lol

I hope you are right, because if you are that means that I will have finished everything.

Ok, So I finally got around to doing some things you can SEE.

As you recall the grille was in bad shape:

And I planned on using these to make a new one...

So I cleaned out the debris and gave it some thought...

And here is the end result...

It is sort of hard to see. But it is in there...

Using this stuff, I was able to get it trimmed out reasonably well.

Flush, tight and uniform.

I'm happy with it, considering that a new one will kill a couple of hundred and  I've got about $15 in this one.

Gutter gaurd is very light weight too. I replaced the exhaust grille on my X1/9 with it to save 3.5 pounds.

Yesterday's project was to rebuild the door panels. They were literally falling apart. The wax like glue that had been used 20 years ago had completely failed. As a result sections of the door panels were separating and the mounting tabs that held the panels to the door clips had all failed too. 

Repair was easy enough, some glue...

Some 'new' screws...

..with a lot of patience and I was able to reuse them no problem.

The biggest issue was that on the Driver's door, the vinyl had shrunk and pulled back from the door card, on the top where you rest your arm. With adhesive, a heat gun, and a lot of magic words, I was able to get it back to the edge.

However, it did not trim out well, so once again door edge gard to the rescue.

With a little care in placement, i was able to hide MOST of the 'new' screws from view, when the door is closed.

The top of the driver's door came out pretty well, considering how it all started...

Considering that i had added a piece to the driver's door, i went back and added the same to the passenger door, so they would match.

There was another happy side story here.

I though a speaker was blown... but I found this when I pulled the passenger door panel:

A small piece of broken door panel had fallen into the speaker housing and was rattling against the speaker!

The SLK230 has a short driveshaft.

It is in two pieces, with a slip yoke, u-joint, and carrier bearing in the middle.

On both ends of that, there is a rubber flex joint.

Evidently this makes them a little sensitive to alignment, and rather noisy when something is out of whack.

My car's driveline was a little loud under load, very loud when coasting in gear and dead silent when coasting in neutral. Several online posts pointed to the carrier bearing.

I checked mine, and there was some play.  I ordered a new one.

When the new one got here, I could tell it had the same play in the rubber as the old one... hmmmm.

A closer look showed that the transmission mount had not broken but it had collapsed.

Slapped a new one in, and $37 later, all was right with the world.

New left, old right.

Old left new right... pay attention LOL. I should pay my camera man more...

$1156.36 Previous Budget 

New Work

$37 Transmission Mount

$15 Grille (Estimate)

$18 Door panel repairs (Estimate)

$1226.36 New Total (Estimate)

Nice and clean.  Looking good.  Nice work on a budget style redo. Keep it going.

Nice work on the door panels - I wouldn't be mad about those screws visible at all. I'm enjoying this one! What's the fate for this car now? Have your original plans changed?

In reply to Mezzanine :

Plans are still for a Gastropod entry.

I am doing all of the pretty stuff, because I think it is in the spirit of the Gastropod class.

It might not be in the letter of the rule, ie I might be making it nicer than it needs to be, but it's fun for me to have that goal.

I think someone mentioned that it "should be nice enough to give to your niece to take to college", or something similar.

I am looking at KESS ECM tuning hardware and software, I want to, in a coarse sense, turn the supercharger on sooner and use a LOT less waste gate as the engine is spooling up. I think I can make that change and changes to the fuel and spark maps as well. I think that there is a lot of potential for extending the sweet spot of the power band, We shall see.

I am also looking at a set of springs and shocks to firm it up and lower it about an inch.

All of that with a new set of properly sized 300TW tires and it should be a lot of fun.

Right now, i know I need to fix an ABS/ASR/Cruise Issue still,, and after that I'll decide on spending the money on the rest of the plan.

I also bought headliner material today, to fix that, You can see in the first pictures, it was laying down.

Which reminds me, I will also be replacing the seals in all 5 of the top's hydraulic cylinders. that kit was cheap, like 12 bucks. 

Thoughts?

a_florida_man said:

In reply to Mezzanine :

Thoughts?

Honestly? Keep on Keepin' on, man. It sounds like any 'path' you take with this car will be the right one, since all of them just make it better.

By the way guys.. if you haven't ever used one... these 3m eraser wheels are just magic for adhesive removal!

GIRTHQUAKE said:

a_florida_man said:

In reply to Mezzanine :

Thoughts?

Honestly? Keep on Keepin' on, man. It sounds like any 'path' you take with this car will be the right one, since all of them just make it better.

Thanks

Oh a fellow Mercedes competing in Gastropods 

I didn't know the non-AMG SLK's came supercharged. Keep it up. 

yupididit said:

Oh a fellow Mercedes competing in Gastropods 

I didn't know the non-AMG SLK's came supercharged. Keep it up. 

All slk230's are supercharged 2.3L 4cyls.

What it NEEDS is a V12 Merc...

Love your ride, great score!

a_florida_man said:

yupididit said:

Oh a fellow Mercedes competing in Gastropods 

I didn't know the non-AMG SLK's came supercharged. Keep it up. 

All slk230's are supercharged 2.3L 4cyls.

What it NEEDS is a V12 Merc...

Love your ride, great score!

Hmmm I wonder how well that supercharged m111 would fit in a w123 coupe? 

And thanks. Now that I have the car in the driveway I've been going through all the things it'll eventually need....whew! Wont be cheap!

In reply to yupididit :

so we're going to find out through you just how expensive a free Mercedes can be?  

This reminds me of my $3000 Boxster daily driver. There is something very satisfying in repairing old high end cars with Harbor Freight stuff and material from Lowes...

Torkel said:

This reminds me of my $3000 Boxster daily driver. There is something very satisfying in repairing old high end cars with Harbor Freight stuff and material from Lowes...

Whew, glad I'm not the only one.!!!

in·ge·nu·i·ty

[ˌinjəˈn(y)o͞oədē]

NOUN

1. the quality of being clever, original, and inventive.

In reply to Dirtydog :

Thanks.

When you are broke, it's called cheap.

When you can afford it, it's called being ingenious.

During the challenge it's called saving $$ for shocks and springs...