W110 'Heckflosse' revival

[amotion578]

Back from the dead again! She's hesitating and backfiring through the carb sometimes around 2k RPM under spirited throttle, guessing my mixture is off slightly or my timing needs a little ritarding.





So this setup right now is a full set of Mustang Foxbody rear springs. The spring coil at the top goes smaller, so I cut that coil off and flipped the springs to use the stock rubber spacer thing and to fit the rear spring perch.

For ride quality, the front bounces more than I'd like on sudden drops/rough patches. Overall though isn't bad. The rears are higher than I want right now but I'm gonna give them a few days to settle to see if there's any improvement. I think the differential compensator spring is holding me up and stopping more low/camber in the rear. I noticed at stock height I had a little positive camber going on. But ultimately this was a test to see what Foxbody springs would do on W110 and I am happy at the results!

[amotion578]

I got to hang out with Hardtail Sally at a show over the weekend, and we were joined by a local in his Ghia to putt around downtown Salem and take pictures!











(https://www.flickr.com/photos/amotio...7649589259656/ if you wanna see the rest we took!)

[lower99]

I like this so much...

[A4crn]

Cool...I just saw that on FB

[amotion578]

I like this so much...

Glad I'm not the only one!

Cool...I just saw that on FB

Yes, she's getting around

[MercTastic]

I'm actually really diggin the rake. Kinda makes it look like a 55 Bel Air hot-rodded a bit. Especially with that picture at the pump

[amotion578]

I'm actually really diggin the rake. Kinda makes it look like a 55 Bel Air hot-rodded a bit. Especially with that picture at the pump

Exactly my logic and why I'm happy with where it's at for now, but I still want that ass on the ground! It was hard to see stop lights before with the wink mirror in the way, it's really difficult now hahahaha

[amotion578]

Not much changed in a few months. White walls are now flipped out...





...and most importantly, I got a free 1963? 190 auto parts car/shell.



It's mostly just a shell but has a mostly complete 190 gas motor. You can tell it was a partial restoration. Has newer carpet inside, holes for speakers in the back deck, no trim whatsoever. The gas tank and a little of the rear driver fender was crunched by the forklift driver of course. The trunk lid has a few small dents in it too.

If I can source the tail lights and other 1963 pre face lift parts that can't be reused, I'll swap all the good parts from the rusty body over to this body which apparently has 130,000 miles according to a repair order found in the trunk, 113k in 2000 and odometer reads 30k.

Simply because this shell needs less rust repair and body work and then I would have a period correct 190 gas sedan.

[TeckniX]

Sweet free find. Get all the stuff swapped over and tell car cancer to f-off.


PS: thanks for the earlier list forgot to say so before

[BrandonMcKiernan]

hell yeah. cool to see some oregon peeps on here

[amotion578]

Sweet free find. Get all the stuff swapped over and tell car cancer to f-off.


PS: thanks for the earlier list forgot to say so before

The day the guy dropped it off at his dad's place, he happened to see me drive by headed out to my parents place to swap cars and was absolutely blown away seeing the exact car he just brought home. He flipped a b*tch and followed me home to pick my brain. I got his number and had that not happened I probably wouldn't have gotten the shell for free!

You're welcome haha

hell yeah. cool to see some oregon peeps on here

Oregon grown! Born and raised right here in Salem. I fully intend on taking the Benz to a Datsun show at Canby fairgrounds in June and likely to NW Bug Run at Woodburn dragstrip on May 31st!

[amotion578]

Talked to a guy today who does nothing but part out old Benzes and have at least a 190 gas trunk lid badge, potentially even tail lights, turn signals, and chrome for the fins of the 63 shell. Nice guy, and he was surprised I knew exactly what I was looking for and what I had! Picking up this stuff Sunday, debating on whether or not I want to try and take the Benz out of town to make the run or not...

[amotion578]

Some pics I took recently with my 6D. Did some work!

Marking ONE YEAR with Charlotte!



Girlfriend tackled hitting the wheels with polishing compound and chrome polish.





Here's my jerry-rigged mount for the carb vacuum gauge. I kinda like it!



It's nice not seeing the valve cover all oily and gross :laugh:



This was the major work done last night- focused on diagnosing the blower fan noises. Found out that:

a) the picture above is probably why the blower sounds like death (there's also a fin snapped off of the fan)

b) the hot water valve underneath each heater core (there's two because 60's Benz) is brass, and corroded to hell to the point of not moving

c) the fresh air vent control is completely missing it's cable to open/close it and the bracket is not aligned properly- it's been forced to open for now

d) getting to the blower motor is a real PITA and required lots of little nut and bolt removal

e) it appears this car at one point had A/C (maybe with the diesel motor), as I've now noticed there's a wide bracket about where the AC would have gone

f) the blower motor might need some bearing grease

I also spent enough time underneath the dash to see how I can remove it to make dinking around with stuff in the dash easier. Ze Germans really aren't making this easy :beer:

[amotion578]

So yeah... back from the dead. Two years later. Completely forgot about this thread I had.

Well... the big thing Charlotte has now is a diesel- and not just any diesel- a full W115 OM615 drivetrain swap.

It was... a b*tch, to put it nicely. I got the swap in a straight trade for my M121 gasser, the OM615 was mounted up in the engine bay of a 1963 190c a friend bought for $500.

It was a full two month swap, every weekend both days save for Christmas and Thanksgiving. We got her newly refreshed 190c/4spd column shift buttoned up and it drove 50 miles up to Portland on it's 3rd ever drive since the tags expired in 1992. Brilliant.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was not so forgiving. I mentioned earlier in this thread that my car hates me for working on her and the OM615 swap was that in a nutshell. Engine was in the bay, but no oil filter was going to fit without cutting the crossmember or fabricating a new mount. Crossmember got notched.

Shift linkage to the W115 shifter/transmission was wildly different than W110- so the trans tunnel had to be cut and custom linkage rods were made from all-thread rods and using endlinks from a 4spd VW Rabbit. Everything was welded and solidified and the shifter feel is the most direct, connected, and clunky shift I have ever experienced. I love it. Anyone who drives stick I let get in and feel the shifter and they love it too.

A friend of mine was generous enough to trailer Charlotte in early January to his shop about an hour away. From January to June, on random weekends I'd go down to turn wrenches and hang out. Slowly but surely, we put it together. On the second ever start attempt, the engine STARTED RIGHT UP AND IDLED LIKE A PRO. Also with an open header.

I got her home in late June and began the process of finalizing all the work she needed to drive again. The slave cylinder is in an impossible spot due to the W110 tunnel, and required crow's feet/PB blaster to hell to free up. Then the clutch hard line wouldn't budge and required a few minutes of blow torch. Got all that back together and was able to bleed the clutch myself because it's easier to get at the slave from the giant hole in the trans tunnel than to get under the car and work with 5" of space between tunnel and trans.

I then got to test if the trans even works after all that. Forward and reverse gear no problem. Clutch was good too. SCORE!!!! Not bad for an unknown mileage, unknown condition, "ran on shop floor" engine and trans.

Temp gauge creeped steadily past the 240°F mark on my first test drive around the block. I also promptly lost 3rd/4th gear (shift linkage wasn't tightened down and the 3/4 rod came loose- easy fix)

I found out later that the plug in the coolant temp sender port is an aux fan switch and reads resistance backwards from what the gauge is expecting. Got an IR thermometer to figure out if engine was really creeping up to 200°F in 3 minutes of idling in summer or if the gauge was just ass backwards. Sure enough- wrong sender.

Oh and since I didn't update from after I got the rear settled- I took 2.5 coils off the rear and she sits just right. I took the coils out of the rear entirely for a whole afternoon and found out about driveline bind

I am currently pricing out manual air ride options. I have a large tank, I have somewhere a set of RE-6's a friend needs to find in his shop that I ordered/haven't paid for yet and when I bought the tank second hand, it came with what appear to be a set of RE-6 and RE-8? bags. Just add management.

PS. the diesel is SO MUCH heavier than the gasser engine- probably due to the cast iron head instead of aluminum. This is why MB diesels run forever. It did push the nose of the car lower than it was, and that oil pan is seriously a low hanging target... hence why I kinda need air ride in my life to prevent the 3" tall rock from causing a "WTB OM615 oil pan" situation 50 miles from the nearest town

PPS. open header, 2.2L, 62hp diesel with great compression makes an exhaust pulse that you can feel in your chest. No conversation possible past 5% throttle. She now has a custom 2" to that same resonator/garage sale turn down tip!

PPPS. I have been able to reference exactly two other 220D swapped fintails in the world. One is in Australia circa 2011 or so. I don't recall the other. One of three is cool!

Okay so, enough words. PICS.

Taken last weekend


The 190c squatted because the stock engine was in the trunk, in pieces!


OM615 going in


Borrowed my dad's 8.1L Silverado to bring her home



Because IG is stupid and won't let me link, shameless IG plug to see the stuff I didn't upload to FB or Flickr. Plus videos of various things, if you're interested in hearing it run

https://www.instagram.com/amotion578/

[FcBeunHaas]

Nice project! Keep up the good work