A photo commentary of work on my car...




I bought this car in 2003, it had 18 previous owners and when i got it it was in need of repair. Dirty inside and out (an understatement), broken inside and out but still it was 'good value' so i could afford to spend time and money fixing it up.

UPDATE: AS OF 3/MAY/2005 THE CAR HAS BEEN SOLD AND I NO LONGER OWN IT

If you are interested in seeing my current car then click here

If you would like expert advice on Mercedes Benz problems then try the following forums

work Done so far on my car:-

* new brake discs on all 4 wheels
* 4 out of five wheels have been renovated/resprayed
* some rust has been removed/renovated/resprayed
* new heater blower motor
* new original mercedes benz hub caps for the 4 wheels
* new replacement steering balljoint for the right front wheel
* new brake line cables for the front wheels both sides
* new suspension spring front left side
* new brake pads all round
* original mercedes benz car radio fitted
* fixed electric seating
* fixed electric sunroof
* fixed non-closing boot
* new petrol cap
* refurbished starter motor
* missing plastic trim replaced and sprayed where necessary
* replaced back lights and front indicator lights
* new headlight glass fronts
* power steering fixed
* dashboard has been replaced
* windscreen has been replaced with a new one
* new handbrakes on back wheels and new handbrake cables fitted


Below is a summary of some of that work carried out by me.

Cleaning it up

The car was filthy inside and out, the previous owner must have had pigs running around sleeping in the car, i believe it was off the road for a year or so, the dust, dirt and general state of the inside of the car and the boot was unreal to say the least.

work on the dashboard

I removed the dashboard because it was cracked and i also wanted to replace the heater motor, turns out the dashboard is very hard to replace and i still have not found a replacement. same goes for the heater motor, its dead, removed, but i have not got a replacement yet.

removing the heater motor

I had to take off the wiper arm and motor to get near the heater motor. Then i had to remove the plastic shroud covering and hiding the heater motor, but after a while i managed to get it out, and once out i could see that the brush arms of the motor were falling off which explains why it died with such a noise (like a helicopter).

Replacing the Disc brake pads and fixing the steering balljoint

I had to start replacing the disc brake pads on 3 out of 4 wheels, one had been replaced earlier. so i started with the left front wheel, it went ok, replaced the parts put on the new disc, and put it all back together again. While i was at it i took the rust off the wheel as much as i could and resprayed it black. Now that I have the wheel back on I want to do the same for all 4 wheels plus the spare wheel.

the front right wheel was a different story, the balljoint which controls the movement (left right) of the wheel, was faulty (according to the car road worthiness test) and just pushing it you could feel it was loose, so it had to be replaced. What a nightmare. It took a long time to get any of the nuts to turn and after a while and lots of help from claes (with his welding machine) we managed. To cut a long story short, the reason its so dam hard to get the balljoint off it not because of rust, it's because its threaded backwards, which means to take it off you have to screw it clockwise (reverse threading). we were tightening it !!!. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

removing rust/applying some paint

I have now started with removing some of the rust on the front left hand side of the car. To do this i removed the front bumper, and then removed the rust just behind the front left indicator light. The rust was so bad there that it had created a hole right through the metal so with wire brushes, screwdrivers, wet sandpaper and a lot of effort i removed the bad areas and then refilled them with some magic compound. Finally after applying this compound and sanding the area 3 times, i got it to look 'normal enough' and then spray painted the area with primer paint, after that i spreay painted it with silver metallic paint. Once done i spray painted the bumper so it looks much better, i then refitted the bumber. I'll continue working on the rust over time and hope to eliminate all of it that is currently visible. In these photos you will also notice the back wheel has been painted :).

a progress comparison :)

Two photos of 'before' and 'after' just to show you how the car looked when i got it and how it looks now, it's still not finished yet but it gives you an idea of where i am going.

new stuff added !

In the following shots you can see a dramatic difference in the car, i have finished replacing the last brake disk and researched online for a place to buy spare parts. I found a local garage and ordered new hub cabs for the wheels and a new heater/blower motor. It was expensive but worth it, the new heater works great now and the hubs really finish the car off, finally its beginning to look like a 'nice' mercedes (at least i think so). I have also replaced the front headlight glass with two new ones, and refitted the dashboard properly.

new dashboard and front grill added (updated june 24th 2004.)

As you can see from the following pics the weather has been wet so they look kinda dull :( but apart from that i have replaced the handbrake cable on the back right wheel and also replaced the handbrake (parking brake) shoes on that wheel also (along with new springs/nuts/screws). I bought a replacement dashboard and parts from another guy who was trashing his car, the replacement dashboard and front grill make a nice difference. I had to take the plastic part from inside the grill out and respray it with MATT black spray paint. All in all making some progress :)

(c) Niall C. Brady
Created by anyweb on April , 2004
Last update May 26th, 2004.