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Polei, the SDL

9K views 139 replies 22 participants last post by  redghost 
#1 ·
I picked up a new to me 86 SDL this weekend. Prior Owner called her Ursula. I am going to transform her into a pseudo Polizei mobile.

At the moment, she is getting new tires, since the ones she came with are balder than a baby's backside.

I have one problem. There is an 8 hole plug that lives in the engine bay in front of the fuse box. It came to me unplugged. When I plugged it in (the wire goes to someplace behind and under the IP, the car refused to start. It did glow, but when i turned the key to light it off, there was a "Spang" sound and nothing worked. No more glow, no start, nothing at all.

will post pix about the progress
 
#2 ·
One week in and I have spent more time learning how to rattle can paint the "right" way through many errors, but it is an inexpensive education compared to a class. I could have read all about it and not learned just why it has to be done that way. Now I know.

Here are pix of Polei (she will be a German Police car poseur) when I got her home. Tires were a decade old and had no tread. The set in the trunk were even older and dry rotted. First big expense would be to get fresh rubber. That came a few days after I got her home.

First pic is of the Ferry I took to see her, then to pick her up, and was able to get right back on with her.

The rest are body shots
 

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#3 ·
A few more pix of the closer inspection, since all I really needed was for her to stop, go, and I can take care of looking pretty.

The rust is due to her living in the woods and not getting washed for ages. There were a few mouse nests and a bunch of soaked pine needles/mud that were eating through the rear quarter panel. Engine was not washed and had lots of built up/baked on oily nastiness.

The windows do not operate at the moment. Door panels and other hardware is living in the boxes at the moment. PO tried to fix it, but did not. He got as far as figuring out that the switch works, the motor works, the electrons are not getting from on place to the other.
 

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#5 ·
The S-Class Diesels are amazing cars. Too bad yours hasn't had better care. That being said, you're going to have fun with it, both wrenching and driving.

I bought a stinker in Feb and have had (for the most part) a great time with the car. I get it out on the interstate and just beat on it. I swear the car is smiling right along with me.
 
#6 ·
I decided to clean her up a bit and see just what all wanted attention. The mouse home on the passenger side was interesting. Finding this rust through spot... not so much. I think that is the thing holding the whole car together.

I got the wire wheel in there and found bare metal, then gave it a shot of rust repulsing spray, primer and top coat. If it becomes and issue, I guess I could weld something sturdy in there.
 

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#7 ·
After dealing with the rust under the hood, I gave the hood and trunk lid a good scuffing. There were far too many pock marks on the hood that looked like they would fill out with some heavy sandable primer. It may take lots of that to take care of what looks like a few spots of bird shot impact on the hood.

The tail was much easier. Pry the star off, get the badge/designation off (the cruft had worked its way in) and I found there was a goodly amount of rust under the chrome lip area. I now know that a grinder is not the tool to use to get to bare metal, as it tends to be VERY AGGRESSIVE.

I went ahead and gave both areas a nice primer coat to start with.
 

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#8 ·
Damn that hole area. Was it under the battery tray? I found mine had holed there too due to the battery and a windscreen washer leak. Had been the cause of an annoying leak which ended up putting loads of water in the rear footwell!
 
#9 ·
Yep, the hole is under the battery tray. Tray had enough rust, but got taken care of. Not a good fix, but will work. The mice had also set up a home under there so it kept things wet.
 
#10 ·
The first attempt to make it look the way I wanted... the learning curve begins.

I did the trunk lid, then used the left over to outline the hood.

The heavy fill primer did not fill all the pin hole/shot gun pellet divots. Glaze got whipped out to try to make it gooder. The holes got smaller, so added more primer and started over. While the hood and trunk cured, I sanded the roof in prep for initial primer application.
 

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#11 ·
I got tired of chasing with acetone when I sprayed. Windows and body got the mist from all the gentle breezes that doing this in a booth would have reduced. Spent lots of the day just taping, covering to keep the mess down. That allowed for less stress on respray once the sanding of glaze was done. A bit of light priming and sand with 400 grit wet.

I put it up on the ramps so I could get to the accumulated cruft on the differential. The gross oil gunk was pretty thick and took lots of putty knife and wire brush after the Krud Kutter. Once it was all scraped off, what was found was pretty rusted. I will have to prep it for paint a little later.

Same process up front with the oil pan and other underside of the engine. The pan has a leak through the epoxy putty covering some mystery damage. I am not sure how to tackle that. A fresh pan would be nice. Being able to weld it would be ok. A less expensive or time consuming fix would be really nice.
 

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#13 ·
Clay,

You do realize that taking the door handles off takes all of maybe a minute or two, don't you?

Pull the weatherstrip back just behind the handle and locate the oblong hole in the door. There may be a plastic plug over it. Unscrew the big Phillips head screw and remove it. Get a wood block or some other soft material on the leading edge of the handle and drive it towards the rear of the car with a couple of taps of a mallet.

The trailing edge of the handle will come out. Pull it out of the door and towards the rear.

The front handles will have a pin in the back of the key cylinder that has to be disengaged from the latch by turning the key. Otherwise, they're the same as the backs.

Easy peasy, saves on a lot of masking.

Dan (Martha)
 
#14 ·
For when you really want to get serious about this:


 
#15 ·
That was actually the inspiration for Polei. I need to figure out how to make the mold to hold a few Air Soft guns in that manner.

Dan - I could have removed the handles, but there is an idjit A-hole neighbor who feel poorly toward me. S for brain calls parking nazis to get them to ticket the car. I need to be able to open doors and drive the thing every 48 hours.

Pix are a few days behind actual
 
#16 ·
I spent a number of hours taping the newsprint so that I could got bananas with green paint. You will note that I made a mistake in painting. The door uppers should have been white, not green. That stuff went on too heavy and had a hard time curing right. When I figured it out, I gave it a sanding and over shot it with primer. The whole thing turned into orange peel.

Poop on a Stick!

I got the razor blade out and shaved off the drips and peel. The paint was still very supple. That is a few days in the future from these pix.

Spray on the hood and trunk went really well. Initial sanding was with 800 grit.

The dimple on the hood got sort of leveled out after I had a chat with a neighbor about his car having a dent. I explained how Paintless Dent Repair worked. I did not have the patience to attempt that little metal ball on a stick rubbing on the underside. I got the 3# BFH and gently massaged the underside until it was less deep.
 

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#18 ·
Yeah, no shit on bigsky's point!

If you want/need the manuals, pm me your email.
 
#19 ·
Even with the door handles off, you can still easily open the doors by putting you finger in and pulling on the lever. Very easy.
 
#21 ·
Black paint on above pix is the Rustoleum Rust Remediation paint. I gave it a spray on where I had sanded and hit bare metal. Better a little safe than sorry.

This set kind of gets us up to date. I had only done the upper on the doors before and after sanding the old paint and removing the cladding I was able to wire wheel the rusty bits and prepare them for paint so they would live a few more years. The doors got a coating of sandable primer for extra good adhesion and then, once sanded, were given a coat of green.

Initial sanding was 1000 for first coat, then followed with 1500 and a wash down. Used the soapy spray bottle with the wet sanding block to get a really good silk finish. I had to turn the car around so that each side got an afternoon in the sun to bake the paint. At this point I was getting pretty good with the razor blade at shaving the dang drips.

Hood and trunk have had two coats of paint, doors are on three coats. I am wondering if final coats should be sanded beginning with 2000 and then step up through to 5000, or do something else. I really prefer a single phase over two phase. Not interested in a clear coat that will not withstand lots of UV. If I could get an inexpensive baked on finish, that might change my mind.

Paint work is slow. Having to let the stuff cure, flash, off gas really slows the whole mess down. While the car was getting a tan, I hit the PnP because a Gen 2 420 SEL had hit the yard a few weeks ago. This thing was a beaut! Paint was superb, interior very nice shape, and not body damage. I guess the engine farted or ... Either way, I was able to scrounge the trunk lip (mine died in removal with snapped off rusted bolts) a pair of mirrors, some nice screws/bolts, the Becker radio, headlamp wiper motors and the metal bits they go through. I also got the Go Fast pedal that will replace my busted up one that no longer hooks to the metal shaft. I need to remember to install that before I go for more drives.

Polei has crapped out front seats. The donor car has REALLY nice condition seats front and back, but I had no space or cash to fetch them home. There is also a beer can size hole in my back quarter panel. The thing just fell onto the road this morning while I poked it. Tin worm has gone farther than can be seen from outside. Whole interior, exterior and under side are gone and will want replacement. This car would be a great sheet metal donor, but I am not able to figure out how to cut out a large enough section, as they do not allow power tools on site.

While I was scavanging the bits I wanted, some other fellow decided to remove the front bumper. I would have loved to have both front and rear from the donor, but ... lack of cash and transport space... He only wanted the chrome bit on the front. I guess I will have to rebuild my bumpers with putty or glaze before I paint. The cladding on Polei is ok. IT will want to match the bumpers, so I need to figure out how that will happen.
 

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#24 ·
My neighbors are a pack of liberal Hillary loving whiners. They can suck eggs into the tail pipes of their Prius or Subarus for all I care. They all think their poop don't stink, but have kids with a passel of mental issues. One kid was out on the garden swing this morning at 6am, in the rain, riding that thing for all it was worth.
 
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#25 ·
Makes me glad that my nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away:devil

The best way I found to get rid of runs in the clear coat, is to spread a layer of Bondo over the run area. Then block sand until the Bondo is removed. Saw this on a YouTube video, and used it several times. Keeps from sanding through the surrounding clear. Like where you are taking this car:smile
 
#26 ·
Thanks BigSky. We will see where it ends up.

The sun sort of dictated which way the car points depending on which side needed full sun to bake the fresh paint. Driver side needed its third coat of paint, so went that way.

I had not paid attention to detail of what color the upper part of the doors was supposed to be. First pic shows the uprights being a tad green. First coat of white that they were supposed to be in was put on. I had to take the old masking off so I could drive the car, and put the grille back as well. I think this was the day I drove to PnP to get parts from a 420SEL to replace those that had broken on disassembly.

Pic three is end of the day after I got back, sanded the white and masked a bit to put down some green that had gotten overspray. The next morning I did a full sand of the white with 1000 and last coat on driver side door in green. Notice the rear window pillar is a bit green? Yeah, I got the other uprights, but seem to have missed this one. May have been thicker tape covered it.

Last photo I began masking to do all the white paint. I did a light coat of primer on the bumpers and will be giving them a fresh coat of hammered grey. The side cladding is in ok shape, but the bumpers are worn and toasty. Lots of the urethane foam is visible. PnP wanted $50 for a bumper, and the guy who removed it from the 420sel just wanted the chrome, so I would have needed to tear mine down to put my chrome on. Too much work.

On this trip to PnP, I finally took the car beyond my own block. It was a 50 mile one way trip, and I think the transmission may be slipping. I check the fluid, and it was like new, vibrant red, no burnt smell and right where you want it on the stick (measured with engine running, hot trans). I called a transmission shop, and the tech said the diesels with 722.321 are a pain in the rear due to not having engine vacuum, and that the thing is easily made out of balance/whack if vac is off. I will be taking the car for a look see once I am done with painting.
 

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#27 ·
The previous full dousing with white paint involved wrapping the not white parts in 0.7 mil drop cloth. On removal, most of it became a lace doily and balled up on the masking. I was able to salvage a sheet or two and this time just wrapped the trunk and hood with it. I ran out of brown masking roll, so resorted to the remains of the Sunday paper. Seahawks lost, so I went out in the afternoon and masked windows and doors, then did a wet sand of the white paint with 1500 grit.

Second photo is of the area of dead metal. I poked it and it fell out onto the street. This picture seems to encompass the extent of the rusted area, being the tailing edge of the wheel arch, that hole, above the hole to the first angle change, and back to the tail just that far. I do not need the whole quarter panel, just a section this size to weld in.

Third photo shows that dang green thing not yet covered enough, and the plastic becoming a billowing sail in the evening wind. I put rocks on it to help it stay down. I should have wetted the hood and made the thing stick. Next time....

Pic 4 is of the roof after doing the 1500 wet sand and hosing off the dust. It looks a little dull and there are still visible lines where the paint laid down a track instead of a nice spread. Painting with an evening breeze, or any air movement makes for poor coverage.

Last picture is of the REALLY nice and smooth butt end of the car. I have no idea why this is the one area that is smooth as a baby butt. The green bottle on the trunk is my soapy water delivery system. I have a tupperware that serves as the bath for the sanding block, and this bottle spritzes the panels while I lightly sand.

Sunday was a warm day and I expected to hit the car with paint first thing in the next morning while there was no wind. For some reason the rain was not advised of my desires, and a massive drenching with much wind took place in the wee hours of the morning. I think it washed away most of any sanding residue. What it did do was turn a bunch of the newsprint into mush. I used a micro fiber towel to wipe the car down and let the wind blow it dry.
 

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