My very own barn find!

Every classic car enthusiast I know of, dreams of being the first person to stumble across a long forgotten classic, lurking behind a rusty garage door or hiding under a cover in a barn. Up until yesterday the dream of a "Barn Find" for me was exactly that; a dream.

When it comes to classic cars one never seems to be enough, so over the past two years of owning UGU, I have always been open to the idea of having a friend for her, be that a car I can work on as a tester to expand my knowledge, before trying to do any work to UGU, or just something else that appeals to me.

About a year into my ownership of UGU we were cruising around in one of the more affluent suburbs of West Perth when we turned a corner and spotted another 250C on the side of the road.  I pulled over and went for an inspection.  What I saw was nothing short of horrifying;  I have never seen a car with so much rust!  As I looked about I noticed a sprinkler head on a pole located very near to the car. Its intention was to water the adjacent lawn, not the car! It seemed clear that the car had been parked in this location for a very long time, and that the sprinkler was just pouring water onto it on a regular basis. Noting that the car still had a few good parts, I left a note for the owner and asked if he would like to pass it on to someone who could use it.

Series 1 250 C in terrible condition.  

Note the sprinkler on the pole at the edge of the driveway

The owner called me soon after I left the note and  straight away starting referring to the 250C as "his baby"! Now, if this is how he treats his so called baby, I fear for his children!

The story goes: the car was bought many years ago, following which it was taken for an inspection.  With the car up on a hoist, the mechanic warned that the car was a death trap, having a huge amount of rust in the chassis, sills and floors.  The owner took the car home, parked it up and it has sat there ever since, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

I can only imagine this car would have been stunning when new.  I really love the colour.  The cobwebs in the exhaust are another telling sign that the car has been here for a very long time.

It had been about a year since I have first offered to buy that car, and after passing by the house and seeing the car still in the same spot, but looking even worse for wear, I contacted the owner again.  Perhaps hoping to recoup some of his losses the owner still wanted thousands of dollars for the car so I just let it be.  To this day the car is still sitting there; it is so sad.

As the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens, and in that vein a few days after negotiations ended with that car a fellow Mercedes Club member called to let me know he had heard of a W114 coupe that the owner wanted rid off.

Armed with a phone number I tried to contact the owner straight away, but with no luck, I decided to get in the car a go to the provided address hoping to meet the owner when I got there.  As it turned out the address was a mechanics workshop, and I had picked the worst day ever to go looking at cars, as Perth was hit with a once in a decade storm.

This is how I found her in the pouring rain with the drivers window down

1971 250CE 4 speed manual

Standing in the pouring rain I had a look at the car and listened to what the mechanic was saying. The owner of this car had parked it in his garage 9 years ago and there she had resided, untouched and forgotten.

Six months ago the car was pulled out of the garage and of course no longer ran. This is how she ended up at the mechanics workshop. Amazingly, despite the evident rust, the owner committed to $1,500 worth of work to get the car running again.  This work included a new fuel tank, refurbishment of the injectors and replacement tail lights, as one had been smashed.

For those of you who know these cars you will note in the pictures that the tail lights are not correct. This car is a 1971 W114 250CE making her a series one, so the tail lights should be smooth. Thankfully the originals were found in the boot.

The car had been reversed into what I can only image to be a pole which smashed the original tail light and bent the chrome strip and boot lid

Original series 1 tail lights found in the boot

Having seen the car I once again called the owner and left a message saying I was interested in buying it and could he call me.  My main reasons of interest in the car were the fact that it was still registered and a manual: a rare thing in Australia. I hoped that she might be restorable giving me that test car I wanted to use as a learning tool to help me better understand how to work on UGU.

I didn't hear from the owner for a week or so, but when he called we discussed at length the condition of the car and negotiated a price agreeable to all.  Another week went by before I heard from the owner again and we tried to arrange collection.  That one week became almost 5, by which time I thought he had changed his mind and I had given up on the sale.  However, true to his word the owner stuck to the deal, and yesterday we met, exchanged details and money and the car was mine, yeehaa!

This photo has not been photoshopped, this is where she came from, complete with 9 years of dirt and grime.

Loaded up and ready to go to her new home. 

Tyro Workshop

A big thanks to Steve from Perth Tow for an excellent service.

Tel. 0458 226 088

On the road again; sort of!!

I took this video whilst waiting for the tow truck to arrive.  She was indeed in a sorry state.  Enjoy:

Keeping your cool

Living in Western Australia we are blessed with amazing weather for most of the year; even during winter we often get beautiful clear skies and 20 degrees Celsius days.

With all this sunshine and the intense summer heat, which often exceeds 40 degrees Celsius in the metropolitan area, and higher than that in inland regional areas, many of our cars suffer from sun exposure causing them to look old and tired before their time.

It is not uncommon to see fairly modern cars with peeling and faded paint work. Plastic headlight lenses can become frosted and discoloured in appearance whilst red taillights can fade to pink or, in extreme cases,  totally loose their colour altogether.

Example of faded paintwork. (Thankfully not UGU) 
Image from www.meguiarsonline.com/forums

The Mercedes-Benz W210 is unfortunately one model that suffers particularly badly due to it's plastic headlights.

One of the first MBCCWA events I attended was a demonstration evening at Autovis in Osborne Park, a company who specialise in the refurbishment of plastic headlights.

The demonstrator explained the process in simplistic terms, saying that they sanded off the damaged coating layer, before reapplying a sunscreen layer which protects the plastic below.  I found the demonstration very impressive, and was informed that the cost to do this is significantly less than replacing the lenses.

There are of course plenty of videos on Youtube and DIY kit's you can buy at any auto parts store so you try this yourself.  As UGU has glass headlight lenses I have never had the need to use any of those products, but I would be interested to know what level of success anyone has achieved trying these DIY products.

Link to Autovis website

MBCCWA demonstration evening at Autovis, 2012

It is not only the exterior of our cars that suffer from the sunshine, the interior can also take a battering as plastic trims dry up, distort and crack. Head-linings drop, fabric seats wear and leather dries up sooner than they perhaps would in less harsh environment.

It is common to see dashboards with cracks in them. I assume this is caused by the expansion and contraction of the components over the years.  Some people opt to install dashboard mats, which are essentially a piece of carpet to cover the dashboard whilst sheep skin seat covers are installed to protect the seats.

I was very thankful that my first Benz had sheep skin seat covers. They had been installed when the car was new which meant that by the time I got the car, almost 30 years later, the original seats were in perfect condition.

The dashboard mats are not my personal cup of tea, and often they are used to cover up an already damaged dashboard, or people glue them to the dash causing more damage than what was there in the first place.

Example of dashboard mat

Really the best solution is wherever possible, keep your car out of the sun when it is not in use.  In Perth, as I am sure it is in many other places, it is always the underground car parks and shaded parking spaces that fill up first at the shopping centres. In the suburbs most people are also fortunate to have enough space for a garage or carport.

I have been very fortunate that UGU has been garaged her whole life, and whilst she has had a re-spray at some stage, the interior is pretty much perfect, with the exception of one crack in the dashboard.

Everyone I know with a stroke 8, has this crack in the same place, so perhaps it is a weakness in the dashboard design. The crack runs from the central speaker grille to the edge of the dashboard.  I did considered getting it fixed, but decided that it was part of her character so decided to leave it.

UGU's original interior photographed on the day I collected her

UGU's data card, reference 598 shows that as part of the Australian specification, "heat-insulating glass" was installed. I understand this to mean the glass is slightly tinted.

Tinted windows are standard in all new cars, but often further tinting is installed via the application of film.  You can tint the back windows as dark as you like, however strict laws govern how dark the tint can be on the front side windows. Tinting the windscreen is forbidden for obvious reasons.

UGU had had film installed many years prior to my purchase, however I am told that it had started to deteriorated over the years, developing cracks and bubbles, so the previous owner had a go at removing it.  Unfortunately as he did the layers of the film separated, leaving the glue residue and a layer of the film stuck to the back window making it impossible to see through.

This was one of the considered risks I took when buying UGU, I didn't know how hard this would be to remove, or if it was even possible to remove.  Worst case I thought a new  window might have been required.

UGU. Notice the back window is impossible to see through clearly

UGU. Note the dark window tint on the quarter-light window but not on any other windows

I needed to get UGU's back window fixed as soon as possible, as it made using the rear view mirror pointless, and with only a door mirror on the drivers side I was very conscious of not being able to see what was going on around me, so decided it was to dangerous to drive her until fixed.

A friend of mine has a window film company, so I spoke to him about the problem and he recommended I speak to a auto tinting expert, and gave me the details Steve Gale of Excel Window Tinting.

As UGU has no air-conditioning she gets very hot in summer, so I had already decided that I wanted to get her re-tinted after the old stuff was removed.  Window tinting film cuts out 99% of UV rays, and reduces the amount of light able to penetrate the windows which keeps the car cooler and the occupants safe from the harmful UV rays.  It also has the added benefit of laminating the glass so security of the vehicle is increased.

I wanted to keep UGU looking relatively standard so decided not to go for the darkest legal tint, instead I wanted to choose something more aesthetically pleasing to a car of UGU's age.

I called Steve and asked about my options.  He was able to post me some samples, and with my preference selected (a film with a brown hue to match the interior), he ordered the material and we booked in a day for the installation.  One of the beauties of Steve's business is that it is a mobile service, so he can come to you as long as you have a suitable place to work in.

I will say at this point, Steve did an amazing job and was very particularly about his work, the end product was flawless.

As Steve set to work scraping the glue and old tinting from the back window, I helped by removing all of the side door and window trims ensuring that as much of the glass as possible was exposed.  Just as it did when I installed the replacement check straps, the trim all unclipped and unscrewed perfectly, happy days!

UGU. Rear passenger side trim removed to expose the glass.  

In this picture you can see the outline of the old film which had been installed with the window in the closed position, therefore the edges had not been done which was pretty poor.  You will also note this window is not sitting straight as it had come out of its runner. This  has since been resolved.

With the old film removed and the glass cleaned, Steve set to work shaping the film for the back window. He did this by laying the material on the outside of the glass and then heating it with a heat gun to get the desired shape.  

New film is shaped on the outside of the glass before being installed on the inside

Following several hours work, the job was done 

I was delighted with the job Steve did, which I might add was very reasonably priced and comes with a lifetime warranty!

I have happily recommended Steve to my friends and family, and he has recently tinted my mother-in-laws new VW Golf to the same excellent standard.

Should you need you car tinted and live in the Perth Metro Area, give Steve a call and tell him you read about him on Tyrobenz.

Steve Gale

Excel Window Tinting

Tel: 0437 730 006

Ph:  08 9409 6164