Real Fiero Tech

1972 220 automatic - gasser

Bought it with a rod knock, interior is spotless. Previous owner had a headgasket done and did some brake and steering work. But he had driven it for a while with water in the oil and it wiped out a bearing. I picked up a used complete motor with 75k on it for $500. With the price of Mercedes internals there is no reason to rebuild the original motor. Though I saved it so when I sell it on I have the numbers matching long block if someone were to get that anal over a $3,000 car.

Before


105hp 2.2L M115 installed, I have a powdercoated valve cover for it so I didn't bother cleaning that one.


While it was out I did:
Front subframe mounts
Sway bar kit
Idler arm kit
NGK plugs
Points and condenser
Water pump
Alternator
Rebuilt ps pump
Neutral safety switch
Ignition switch
Heater hose
Bypass hose
Crankcase vent tubes
Transmission fluid and filter

Car is covered in a foot of dust but this shows the hubcaps, my dad refinished them.


Ill post some more pics when I get it cleaned up. Its a neat little car, going to get the AC going and make it one of my summer drivers.

Neat old car, would be a great round town driver.

Nice. You're a whiz with these old Benzos

You must be a rockin' mechanic... you seem to be able to get a lot done to these Benzes pretty quickly.

Thanks, mechanic is a bit generous. Just me jerking around in the garage on weekends.

Need to take this car to a friends house, I have timing light but I don't have a dwell meter / tachometer, and the timing spec on this car has to be set at 3000rpms and the car does not have a tach. It runs well but back fires a bit, hopefully fresh fuel and getting the timing squared away will improve it. Otherwise I will tear into the stromberg carburetor. A carb that is known for being tiresomely reliable, but when it finally does break, nearly impossible to make right again.

Next project is getting the AC working, the car had pressure in it when I cracked the lines to pull the motor so the evaporator and condenser aren't cracked. Will those old style AC lines hold R134a in is the real question. Debating trying to fill a car with propane as a refrigerant, need to make a line to adapt 30lb propane container to the manifold gauges.

Our refrigeration units at the gas plant I run also use propane. It's a great refrigerant. Never heard of it used in a car though, neat.

About to be out of school for the semester, lots of car stuff to get done over the summer, if people care I'll keep posting. I debated starting a thread called whats up at archies, but I didn't know if only I would laugh.

Yeah, you work on cool stuff... about to make a Benz convert out of me.

Parked under a tree so its got crap on it, but the light shows the hubcaps better. Been driving it to and from work. It does pretty poorly on fuel but my office is 6 miles from my house so its not a crisis.

Well the temp creeps up at high speeds, I think the radiator is not flowing as well as it should. If you run the heat it stays under control but if you turn the heat off it runs warm, I would assume that means the radiator is not exchanging as much heat as it should. The thermostat opens when it should (I had two, both were good, but I drilled a 3/16" hole in one for now as a failsafe), water pump is new, radiator hoses are new, and the fan is fixed and the belts are new. A radiator is $664 as it is brass, so I have the one in the car and a spare, going to take them to radiator shop and see if we can get away with cleaning it.

Flushed radiator fixed my cooling issues and I have been driving the car to work when its not crazy humid out. The AC held pressure, so I need to get a new drier and charge it, but its been so humid its not any fun to drive.

Picked this up,


1972 220D, but the gas and diesel share the same bellhousing, and this is a 4speed. My plan is to use this parts car to swap the yellow car in this thread to a stick.

Had this out and about over the weekend, never did 4-speed swap it, I bought another 1972 W115, excepts it an original paint original sheet-metal 220 Diesel with a 4speed, so that sort of relaxed my desire to swap this car, but I still have all the stuff so it may happen.

How comfortable are the older Benz's to drive?

Depends on how collapsed the upholstery padding is, and how many of the seat springs are cracked.

My dad has all kinds of little tricks of using pool noodles intertwined in the springs and he pulls up the upholstery and uses various thicknesses and densities of foam to make the pleats in the upholstery stand up like they should. This car in this thread has always been really comfortable. But we have both had W123s and W126s that took a lot of messing with old broken down seats to assemble a really nice pair. Mercedes also was always good for revising seats later in production so he likes to use final year seat frames and padding of a given chassis and then adapt the old style upholstery (they always seemed to change the number or style of pleats as they revised the seats, so while later seats would bolt right in, they would not look correct) over them to make a really nice seat that still is correct for the car. For example some early cars used "horsehair" pads while later cars used a high density foam pad, so he sewed 1985 pads into 1977 seats for a car he has.

When they are new or low miled they are super comfortable, but your average 200,000 mile beaten on craigslist car probably isn't very pleasant, but it is not hard to get them back to feeling really nice. Sort of an around and about, definite maybe sort of answer, but that's what I've got. I may have some pictures of his repair work.

Ok, so the seats have to be built back up. How does the suspension feel? Was it good in it's day or was the technology back then on par with American classics (clunky and heavy)? I've got a thing for 70's Benz's, but I want to know if its worth putting the time and effort into one to get the ride back into where it should be, if when completely restored it still rides like an 80's Pontiac.

The window lines on the 70's C cars have been tugging at my strings, but I don't want to put a ton of money into one if its not comfortable to ride people in.

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/cto/5519210180.html

Emc209i wrote:Was it good in it's day or was the technology back then on par with American classics (clunky and heavy)?

Wash your mouth out with soap. Older Mercedes suspension is FAR more advanced than domestic stuff. They had self-leveling hydraulic suspension in the '60's. They used a variation of independent in the rear that's more or less like Ford's Twin Traction Beam front end in concept, but worked much better.

Waiting to hear back from Paul on this one. The W115 used double wishbone front and trailing arm rear. Nothing fancy.

300SL rear suspension

Will, I'm aware there are several older Mercedes that had unique suspension systems. I'm not asking about those.

Sidenote; even if I had 4 million to spend on a 300SL, I'd be demoralized to purchase a car while people are dying of starvation in this world.