Disassembly begins

With the decision made to sacrifice Jade to the benefit of others, I set to work removing the interior of the car which despite being filthy wasn't in bad shape.

First I removed the front seats, a simple job of removing four bolts per seat that I had done on UGU many times before.  I then moved onto the back seat, door cards and rear panel cards; again all things I was familiar with from working on UGU.

Drivers seat was the first thing to be removed

 Unfortunately the drivers seat shows wear to the door side, but generally the seats are in usable condition. Note seats are in reverse order in picture

The back seat was/is actually in great condition once the dirt was removed

Back seat with ghostly seat belt pattern

After a wash down, the rear seat is in near perfect condition

With the seats out there was now a lot more room to work in the car.  I turned my attention to cleaning it out.  As with many cars you always find rubbish under the seats that you would rather not have to touch.  Hair brushes, half eaten sweets, bottles of juice, as well as parking tickets and general accumulation of 40 plus years of gunk. On the flip side, I found $1.45 in change and in a rare instance, found the missing accelerator pedal under the passenger seat!

Centre console in excellent condition

As I started to remove the interior trim I was reminded of the excellent build quality of these cars.  Not a single thing broke or snapped as I undid the screws and bolts.  Only one screw in the rear had rusted do the point that I needed to drill it out.

With that said, I have become sceptical as to whether this car has actually been stored inside as I was told by the previous owner.  It may have done; time can also be a destructive source, but the dash pad, rear view mirror and seat belts were so brittle that it seems to me that they have been sitting in strong day light.

Seat belt spaghetti

I removed the centre console which again was pretty easy despite my concerns about it otherwise.  The hardest thing to remove was non Mercedes-Benz stereo which, without the key to remove it from it's cradle could only be removed with the console out.

Aftermarket stereo and a very damaged gear knob

I removed the speaker cables running to the back of the car and all the old mouldy carpet, things were looking better, well cleaner anyway: the level of rust was not looking healthy at all.

The cleanest this interior has been in many years

As you would have seen in my previous post, this car has had a dreadful repair done to the drivers footwell which has allowed water to get into the car and has run back as far as the front seats, but interestingly it looks like this car has also had issues with rust along the length of the passenger side sill that has been painted over perhaps in a bid to stop it.

I cannot for one minute believe this messy black paint work is standard issue Mercedes-Benz which makes me think this is someones attempt at rust prevention

I make reference to this car being "beyond repair".  To clarify, no car is beyond repair if you are willing to pour the money into it. So what I mean is this car is beyond economical repair.  It would cost several times the cars value to repair it, so until my lottery numbers come in, I am not in a position to salvage this car and so, by dismantling it I am hoping to help other owners and enthusiasts, recoup my initial investment in both the car and tools, and expand my knowledge of these amazing cars so that one day I can perhaps bring one back from the brink.  Everything I learn I will share with you via my Tyrobenz blog.

Check out my first Tyrobenz video to find see more about the disassembly process: