1963 Mercedes Benz 190DC Fintail. First drive of 2024.

[RayMK]

@Dyslexic Viking, you've made a very neat job of the carpets despite the difficulties. I love tan interiors.

[Dyslexic Viking]

3 minutes ago, RayMK said:

@Dyslexic Viking, you've made a very neat job of the carpets despite the difficulties. I love tan interiors.

Thanks. And I also love  tan interiors, The door cards that are there now are not original, so I plan to change them to original ones in tan I think that will be nice.

[Wibble]

Once the door cards are done, that will look amazing! Great job!

[rainagain]

May be a bit late now but if you want to enhance the sound proofing put a layer of a house carpet underlay between the carpet and the dynamat. It does look amazing.

[JMotor]

I'm seeing only good things here. 

Yeah things do become trying, but that has to be the norm and be expected. Just have to find a way to make it work and you're doing a grand job so far. 

Nowt wrong with the welding either. As you say it's not meant to be perfect. It's good and strong. So that will do. 

[rusty_vw_man]

Looks lovely. In my experience even getting a professional to carpet can be a bit hit and miss, so if this set was a good price I’d definitely call it a win. The hat is an excellent accessory. 

Great to see it all welded up, the seatbelt mounts look fine, it’s clearly proper welds to actual metal! 

Looking forward to seeing pictures of it driving around now….

[Dyslexic Viking]

Thank you all. And the plan now is to use this as much as I can and do some small jobs on it in between. I've also thought about making a YouTube video where I show and go into some detail about the car, as it has a lot of character if that's the right thing to call it.

[Matty]

Hat makes it. End of. Lovely motor.

[TrabbieRonnie]

Beautiful car DV, and great work you've done.  Looking forward to some 'out and about' pics 👍

[PhilA]

Looking most excellent!

Consider the seat belt mounts in my Plymouth are made almost identically from the factory (the spreader plate is just on the other side of the tunnel metal), with that shape of the propshaft hump the tunnel is a strong point.

The other repairs look nice and neat. Should last!

I'm looking forward to getting to the stage of putting carpet into mine... That's a long ways off yet though.

[Dyslexic Viking]

It was full of dust from the body shop so washed it and took it out for an evening drive.

[Dyslexic Viking]

One thing I have realized is that since the original prefilter has been removed, there is now no water separator in the fuel system on this.

And something should be done about that. And after looking a bit at alternatives, I'm considering installing a water separator as in the picture below. The tractors have these and they work very well and it will look period correct to the car. So I think I will go for one like this.

[Dyslexic Viking]

It's a bit of a heat wave here now, so I've been hiding in the garage today. So have had a look over this one. The brakes are not good not sure if they should be like this or not so jacked up every corner and felt on the wheels and the brake shoes rub against the brake drums on all 4 so they can not be badly adjusted so I will just wait for MOT in 2 months and see what they say then.

And the adjustment on the brake drums on this one is strange at the front I can't easily find anything and at the back the only thing I can find is the bolt head marked in the picture below that goes into the drum, I think this is the adjustment?

Also noticed that 3 out of 4 wheel bearings have some movement in them so will also see what they think about it at MOT.  Apart from this, I didn't find anything else wrong which is good.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Got the water separator today and am very pleased, it is heavy and seems to be of good quality.

I bought with extra glass and 2 gaskets and a nice surprise is that these 2 are identical to the Volvo tractor that is here, which will make spare parts in the future easier.

This also has a screen/mesh which means that it will also work well as a coarse filter so I can then remove the plastic filter I use now. I can also take this out and clean it. The diesel enters through the hole in the middle and exits into a hole  to the right of it.

The only thing I don't like are the hose nipples I bought with it. There are some problems using copper washers with them.

And without copper washers, one can clearly see how little this covers the hole.

And the problem with these hose couplings is that they are not the same thickness all the way in the thraded part. In the center where the arrow points, there is a dump and this causes the copper washer to move too much and seal poorly.

So I want a hose connector where the threaded part is the same thickness all the way and maybe I have found some and they are ordered. The problem has been finding some as the water separator has M14 threads and it is most common with NPT on things like this so it has been difficult to find some.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Little is happening here as I struggle with the heat and hay fever. But got some small things done today, and not sure if this is worth a post.

I wanted a rubber mat in the boot, it is possible to buy new ones for this, but they are expensive, very expensive, so I bought a universal one instead and cut it to size and turned out well I think.

The window washer system on this was a foot pump by the pedals and a tank cumbersomely placed by the battery. The foot pump was removed as I didn't want leaks with washer fluid inside the car and in the new carpets. So this has now been upgraded to a new tank with an electric pump hidden away down in front of the battery.

I haven't glued the carpets on the floor and the ones in front are quite loose and move, so I fixed this with Velcro today.

And with the passenger side carpet removed, I took a photo of the sound insulation, something I didn't do when I installed it. Everything from the front seats forwards is 2 layers and I soundproofed the firewall as high up as I could. And behind the front seats there is one layer.

And it works well, but there is a lot of engine noise at 80 km/h and higher and it is probably difficult to isolate away as the engine at such speeds runs at quite a high rev. But is considing soundproofing the inside of the bonnet, will research to see if it gives any improvement in engine noise.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Got the new door panel/card today and they were lighter in color than what I got the impression of.

And they are a bit brighter than the seats.

So not completely happy with this, but probably just have to install them and live with it.

[Dyslexic Viking]

I probably should have put this off for another day, but I really wanted to get this done. I fitted the new door cards and the color was lighter than I thought when I bought them but it wasn't too bad. The car now has 4 colors inside and will get better and more pictures taken later as I  just came in and is worn out.

And am very happy with these door cards, they had a good fit and the holes in the back plate were already made so I could easily cut out the holes I needed in the fabric and the price was reasonable. Attaching a link to the seller think they have for other cars as well.      https://www.ebay.com/str/bamboliltd

[Fumbler]

On 26/05/2023 at 19:44, Dyslexic Viking said:

I think Fluid Film is quite good, the only thing I don't like is that if it is on the underside of the car, it attracts dirt as it never fully dries. So if I can, I prefer a Swedish product which I think is wax and bitumen based that dries. But it's not such a big problem on this one, which is only used in the summer season, so it almost only see clean roads.But what Fluid Film is really good at is cavities. The main car was treated with the wax product underneath and Fluid Film in the cavities almost 3 years ago and it is still comming out in plate joints, drainage holes etc. But it is now starting to slow down. They say that Fluid Flim can soke/crawl out to 15 cm.

On an old Toyota with a lot of rust inside the sills, Fluid Film prevented them from rusting out for 5 years before the car was scrapped. And the one tractor here is very rusty and I have painted it with Fluid Film 2 times in the last 5 years and the rust has not developed and is stable. 

So my experiences with Fluid Film are good. And on old cars I now always treat the cavities with Fluid Film as it can prevent them from rusting out or at least slow it down and if it were to rusts out then Fluid Film is not flammable  so it shouldn't  cause problems with welding.

It's supposed to attract dirt and never set up by design. The dirt attraction helps thicken it up and being constantly fluid means and scratches should heal up after a hot day in the sun. Staying fluid also means it won't dry and crack up which I've found Waxoyl (bitumen-based) to do. The one thing I don't like about FF is that it does tend to wash off in wheelarches. Heavy oil doesn't though

[Dyslexic Viking]

As promised some better pictures.

Wish they were a little darker in color but I'm happy with it.

And took an early morning drive and filled up with diesel and had 2 people waving while driving and an older man at the petrol station who really liked the car, that's always fun.

And this has been a very fun experience taking the interior of this from a smelly mess to this.

[Nullzwei]

Interior looks amazing.

Regarding underbonnet sound insulation you can still get Mercedes w201 underbonnet insulation pads new from Febi. Could be an option if you can 'adapt' one to fit your car. Happy to take some dimensions from my w201 if that would help.

https://www.partsinmotion.co.uk/car-parts/body/body-miscellaneous/febibonnetsoundproofing09506-detail

[Dyslexic Viking]

5 minutes ago, Nullzwei said:

Interior looks amazing.

Regarding underbonnet sound insulation you can still get Mercedes w201 underbonnet insulation pads new from Febi. Could be an option if you can 'adapt' one to fit your car. Happy to take some dimensions from my w201 if that would help.

https://www.partsinmotion.co.uk/car-parts/body/body-miscellaneous/febibonnetsoundproofing09506-detail

Thanks. And that is something I can think on, but would have preferred something with glue which would have made the installation easier.  But a good suggestion. Will have to do some research on this and find out what is effective as it is loud.

[Rust Collector]

Well done mate, the interior looks fantastic. You've really done the car proud.

I think the difference in colour between the door cards and seats looks fine, as it's enough to look deliberate and so it isn't jarring. I think it would be impossible to get an exact match, and would actually have been worse if they were very close but not matching; at least to my eye!

This is such a lovely old car, it's fantastic to see the level of care it is receiving.

[artdjones]

3 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

As promised some better pictures.

Wish they were a little darker in color but I'm happy with it.

And took an early morning drive and filled up with diesel and had 2 people waving while driving and an older man at the petrol station who really liked the car, that's always fun.

And this has been a very fun experience taking the interior of this from a smelly mess to this.

Once you've enjoyed it for a while you could always change the colour of the door cards.

https://www.kolorbond.co.uk/vinylkote-paint-leather-vinyl/

[captain_70s]

I think the door card colour looks good. Similar to the seats/carpets it doesn't look out of place but different enough it's not a sea of a single shade. 

[Dyslexic Viking]

Had one of the best experiences yet as a car person last night.

Took this for a longer drive and it was 2.5 hours and 120km on empty country roads with music on and perfect weather. And I would have kept going if I didn't start to get tired as I just wanted to keep driving. As these are such great cars to drive and I am starting to think that these are one of the greatest cars ever made.

[Dyslexic Viking]

But there are some small problems, the clutch pedal doesn't always return completely but seems like the cluth disengages properly, starting to wonder if the cluth master isn't completely healthy and I had  problems bleeding the system so it's possible there is a connection between these two. But have learned to check the pedal with my foot and pull it out if necessary after use.

There are a lot of noises from the belt area, especially when cold. It really needs a new alternator and tensioner and new belt.

But after all the recent work I'm broke so just hope some of these things can keep working a little longer.

[TrabbieRonnie]

You have saved a great car there, the good times are well deserved!  I totally get what you're saying, it's a great feeling bringing a good car back to where it should be.

I'm sure it'll hold out for a while (maybe keep a belt in the boot, just in case!), you enjoy it.

We're all enjoying the updates too fella, cheers!

[Dyslexic Viking]

Put a new fan belt on yesterday and it calmed down the noises more than I had thought, so that's good. 

And have now had another short oil change done today It was 260 km since the last oil change and will now run normal oil change intervals on this one going forward unless something else happens.  

And the important thing I got done was to change to a new oil pre filter, these should only be cleaned and not changed, but the one I have is so clogged that I struggle to get it clean and have doubts whether it can be saved.

And the difference between new and old prefilter is quite clear.

And with the filter housing cleaned, new oil filter and new oil pre filter, this was ready to go back on the engine.

So with new engine oil and filters it was started and runs fine. Feels like this engine just gets better and better with oil changes and use.

[Scruffy Bodger]

I f a filter gets really badly clogged shit can get forced thru it, I'd have changed that too. Glad you're enjoying it and especially using it.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Got caught in a rain shower while driving this today and unsurprisingly discovered that the wipers are not good. But after looking a bit I can't find new chrome windshield wipers, so does anyone have any ideas?