SLK Round 3!

[Firm]

Drove this to work for the first time on Friday, 50 mile round trip, drove great, no issues at all.

Today we're back into 'normal' outdoor temperatures so I tackled rebuilding the hydraulic cylinder for the latching mechanism on the top. I was always sort of intimidated by these top hydraulic systems, but once you get to understanding it, it's pretty simple stuff. Removed this cylinder, but since the lines are not detachable, rather than tearing apart all the interior and trunk to fish the lines out from the pump, I just unclipped enough length to get it out the window and rebuilt it right where it is in the photo...Definitely glad I haven't done any paint correction work on it yet. Rebuild is pretty easy; fight the retaining clip, pull out the piston, swap two seals, clean everything and reassemble. Total job took about an hour. Now we're leak free and the top works mint.

Now that the leak is addressed I can get the headliner back in. I tried recovering it re-using the original material awhile ago, but the material (some type of thin vinyl) reacted with the 3M Super 77 spray glue I usually use for those type of jobs and wrinkled up. So, I ordered some light beige suede and will 'upgrade' it to a suede headliner when it arrives.

Washed the exterior for the first time today too.

I also got in touch with the previous owner...Apparently it was with her family from new; her uncle bought it new in San Diego, he died in 2012 and his dad shipped it to his house in Sunset Beach NC....he died and his other son (this girl's dad) got it and brought it to Nashville. He got too old to drive and she donated it.
Nice girl though, had a good chat with her. She's a professional Cello player in Nashville - sent me a nice photo of her and her sister driving the car by the beach in North Carolina. I always get a kick out of these kinda stories.



Freshly washed for the first time in my ownership:

[RRocket]

Looks good!

[Firm]

Headliner back in, really pleased with the way it turned out.

[Johnnymac]

Looks factory new Firm.

[Blueprint]

Mrs. Firm will love the "nice girl" comment 

[Blueprint]

Very neat headliner job, and clever approach to the hydraulics job!

[Firm]

Thanks! Been using this thing pretty regularly, nice to have something that's 'good' on gas in the driveway for quick errands and whatnot. I've made the work commute in it a few times as well, but the DTS is honestly better suited for that job.

[Firm]

Started working on the paint correction, got about 2/3rds of the car done...hood, roof, trunk and all the left side panels are done. The paint is in extremely good shape for a 22 year old black car, it had heavy clear coat scratches, probably from years of automatic car washes, but those all came out pretty easy. Very few stones chips, which is shocking since Mercedes paint from this era is terrible for chipping....Don't think this car saw much highway usage.

Going to need to deal with the non-op A/C soon though, that's going to suck, but you can't operate a black car around here without good A/C

More importantly though, Mrs.Firm has been loving it...using it every chance she gets.

[Bubba]

Looks great!

[Johnnymac]

She certainly looks good in it. 

[TheHire]

When you're in Tennessee, do people call that thing a "Maarrrrcedes"?

[Firm]

lol, I haven't noticed. I always thought that was more of an Eastern Ontario thing. 

[Revelations]

 That Marrcedes looks great next to the Jagwire 

Nice job on the headliner. I need to do my Lebarons this year. Just need to find the right shade of whorehouse red.

[Blueprint]

That Marrcedes looks great next to the Jagwire 

Don't forget them little Emmgeebee!

[Firm]

AC was empty, and it's starting to get hot here, so I made some time to play with it. Pulled a vacuum and surprisingly it held vacuum just fine, so I put about half a can of freon in it, just enough to get the compressor to come on, along with some UV dye. Ran it a couple weeks like that and it held pressure. Did a thorough inspection with the UV light....no sign of any leaks. Did another inspection using a freon sniffer, no hits.

So, I filled it to the proper charge and it's now cooling really well. The question remains; why was it empty in the first place? Not sure honestly, but it's working good now, hopefully it holds out and I don't end up down the path of trying to track down some mystery leak.

Tossed a new cabin filter in it too. Only things left on my list are to do bunch of fluid exchange; oil, trans, diff, and then some detailing in the engine bay. Maybe some PDR work on a couple of small dings if I really want to make it perfect, and I am debating window tint. I have 20% (which is pretty dark) on the other DDs and it really helps cut down the sun & heat, but I am kinda digging the clear glass look on this. We also live in the woods and there's no streetlights, so tint makes seeing at night  extra difficult....so iunno, I am on the fence on it.