I haven't driven the Mercedes in at least two months. At all. And I haven't seriously moved it (more than a handful of parking spaces) since the last major snowstorm we had. Since the lease at our townhouse is officially up on Monday, Layla and I trucked up to Kirkland,...
Driving the Mercedes around in the winter wonderland that has become the eastern Puget Sound, I've discovered an odd, and unusually immobilizing, feature on the Mercedes. But, some background is required. The Mercedes is equipped with an automatic transmission, which, instead of a clutch, is fitted with something called a...
It's been raining, so now that I've removed the retarded Texan dealership emblem off the trunk of the Mercedes, it's time to patch the holes. Bondo isn't really the ideal solution here—it's really best at filling dents and dings and sanded out rusty patches and the lot. Whenever you're actually...
I woke up this morning and thought, "What? I'm planning to fix dents on a sub-thousand-dollar Mercedes with absolutely no hope of ever making the body actually completely straight?" Absolutely nutters. So instead, I've got the BMW in the garage and ready to go for a clutch swap. Pardon the...
Despite my somewhat commonplace complaints about dent repair, I guess I'm back at it with the Mercedes. The funny this is that all told, the car really does have some not insignificant hail damage. The hood and the roof are both fairly seriously tweaked, and both front fenders have a...
October 11, 1967 Mercedes-Benz Engineering Daimler-Benz AG Stuttgart, Germany Dear Director of Engineering, I hear that you are getting close to completing your designs for the new 1969 Mercedes-Benz 250. Congratulations on so many years of hard work! However, I would like to ensure that a few features are not...
When owning an old vehicle, it can't all be roses and sunshine. And so, if you entered the onramp from 40th to 520 sometime around 7pm this evening, you would have spotted a white Mercedes stopped along the side of the road and, if you happened to look in your...
Despite the fact that I've driven the Mercedes all over the place now, it hasn't really been completely drivable. The rear defroster doesn't really work, the shift from 2nd to 3rd concerns me, the throttle linkage sticks, and the car sputters off-idle. The last of these means I can't really...
In celebration of actually having a running vintage automobile, I drove it to the office today. Admittedly, a big part of the reasoning behind taking the Mercedes today was that I would already be delayed by a few hours to let the apartment fixit guy in, so I was assured...
I've now replaced a good chunk of the ignition system on the Mercedes—result: much easier starting and far less sputtering off idle. Part of this involved replacing the ignition points which, for those of you without a serious automotive background, are the parts which cause all of the glorious toasty...
The picture at the right is a wee compartment inside the front passenger fender. It's accessible via a panel in the wheel well and, if you haven't yet figured out already: you put your weed in it. The whole reason for pulling this apart was to replace the antenna, which...
After a solid six weeks of hacking at it in my spare time, I've finally gotten the driver's-side rear door on the Mercedes open. The culprit? A rusty mechanism and a jammed child lock. In the end, I had to pry the locking tangs away from the assembly which unhooks...
Right when I start looking into repairing the blower motor in the Mercedes, I actually give it a shot...and the damned thing works. Right away. But now, there's no heat in the core. Agh. Oh, and even though I've got a replacement seal kit for the trunk lid, there's so...
The blower motor doesn't work on the Mercedes. Before I start pulling everything apart, I figured I'd check how much a replacement would be—if it's less than $50, I figure I'll go ahead and replace it anyway even if it isn't busted. I'm sure the old one is megafunky. It...
One of the problems that came with the Mercedes was a stuck rear door. The problem is that the lock (one of those vertical pull/push arrangements) won't pull up further than about halfway. Thus, the door can't be unlocked, and so it can't be opened. Thankfully, Mercedes put two-piece door...
Regular readers of my journal may remember that I've painted a few cars and that I've said many times that I've had enough of it. Unfortunately, I'm a giant liar, and I spent a healthy chunk of Saturday sanding out a giant hail dent in the hood of the Mercedes...
After countless months of "too busy to work on it" and a few weeks of "we've just moved and I need something reliable," we've finally got the Mercedes back. So the short story here is that I rebuilt the carbs but didn't catch the big vaccuum leaks that both had...
After not really doing much with the Mercedes for around a month or so (I've been busy), I asked around a bit and the simplest response I found was: check your float valves. They may be set incorrectly. It had never occured to me to actually check the position of...
I've talked (at length, ahem) about automotive forums before. In almost all cases, the forums that I've encountered contains largely misinformed discussion by disinteresting people. Whatever truth one does find is generally dispensed by the few knowledgable individuals who happen to hang around. My experience has been that anyone who...
Because I've spent entirely too much time at the computer today, I'm not going to hammer out a full post. Instead, pictures! This first shot is one that I took of the valvetrain which I uncovered when I pulled the carbs off. Hot. The one is weirder—I ordered a new...
I'm slowly making my way through the carbs—getting anything significant done is pretty difficult because it's pouring rain and I can really only work inside for about an hour or so before the fumes become intolerable. It appears that the rain won't let up until the end of the week...
Most of today was spent continuing the carburetor rebuild I started yesterday. Thanks to a house smelling like gasoline (note: rebuilding a carb inside—even if it's done near a wide open door—is a terrible idea) and the fact that it started raining at 3pm, I didn't get too much done....
Today is notable in that I spent almost all of it pulling the carbs off the Mercedes and rebuilding one of them. I spent an awfully long time scratching my head trying to figure out how to get the carbs off the car in the first place. The nuts that...
Today is notable in that I spent almost all of it pulling the carbs off the Mercedes and rebuilding one of them. I spent an awfully long time scratching my head trying to figure out how to get the carbs off the car in the first place. The nuts that...
Now that we're back from our trip to New Mexico, I'm going to try to forget about the hours that my ass throbbed from sitting in that Camry for 26 hours, and the countless hours of jabbering that occured in the row behind Layla and I on the flight back...
I'm sure she has posted about it already, so I don't feel bad talking about Layla's new car. It's a Mercedes-Benz. It's a 1971 Mercedes-Benz. I think this car is really really cool—it's in really surprisingly good shape, it was really cheap, and it's got heaping loads of character. There...
...so I'll let her post about it first. Yes, it has to do with cars. Stay tuned....
