Item 6: Mercedes-Benz W114/W115 RHS Original Door Mirror

Today I dusted off Jade's door mirror and showed it some love as I prepared it for sale.

Again, I used the superfine wire wool to buff up the chrome; and again the results were wonderful as it polished up beautifully!

How to polish tarnished chrome

With the chrome shining brightly, I removed the glass and cleaned out the inside of the housing, removing 40 odd years of dirt and grime.  The housing has some minor scuffs and a stone chip on the outside, but it is very presentable and therefore usable for anyone using their car as a daily driver.  Luckily the stone chip is on the side closest to the car body so it is not that obvious when on the car.

With a new mirror glass this would be a great replacement for any damaged housing, or indeed, the perfect addition to any of you left-hard-drive car drivers, who would like a period appropriate mirror to put on your passenger door.

Suitable for Series 1 W114 & W115 Variants

Quantity - 1 only

$50AUD excluding postage

Before...

...After

All parts cleaned and ready to be re-assembled

Not perfect but very presentable

New mirror is a must.  

Glass is undamaged so perhaps new foil back is possible

Stone chip = character mark

Not only is it now shiny outside....

 it is shiny inside too!

Love of the Shiny Bits

I think everyone will agree part of the charm of classic and vintage cars is the extravagance and quality of the chrome detailing. There is little better than seeing your cars shiny bits sparkling in the sun just after being polished; perhaps this is why modern day cars still show off the odd chrome detail here and there, but we all know it is not what it used to be, nothing more than bits of shiny plastic.

UGU on display at the Northam flying 50, 2014

Disclaimer: Please do not attempt the following on "plastic chrome" as I have no idea what the result would be.

I have been very fortunate in UGU, she doesn't have much rust to speak of, and her chrome work still has lots of shine, but there are a few bits that could do with some attention, like the strips that cap the doors at the window line.

As with all things UGU related, I am somewhat reluctant to have a go at fixing her just in case I do it wrong, so when a friend explained to me how to get the best out of your chrome, I filed it in my memory and did little more,  until now.

Land Rovers are not known for their bling, but Leif does have a few bits - headlight trim, windscreen wiper arms, and steering wheel spokes.

They were all a bit tarnished, so I decided to bite the bullet and have a go at cleaning the headlight surrounds, thinking that if I damage them, it is not the end of the world.

With the trims removed I gave them a wash to remove the dirt and grime and left them in the sun to dry whilst I went to the hardware store to buy some superfine steel wool.

Washed, scrubbed and dry; and still looking awful!

My only prior experience with wire wool is a Brillo Pad.

 DO NOT use a Brillo Pad

Good for pots, rubbish for chrome!!

Sitting in the sun on the Verandah at the Tyro Workshop, I gently started rubbing the super fine steel wool over the tarnished headlight trims, in no time at all, the results were clear to see.

Bling vs Ming

So after about an hour I had both trims polished inside and out, and could not believe how well they polished up with absolutely no scuffing or scratching from the steel wool.  So there you have it, how to get your chrome from Ming to Bling for less than $5.

With these rings, I thee wed, haha

You gotta be happy with that, haven't you?

With my trial complete and expectations high, you had better get your sunnies ready for the next time UGU goes for a drive!

UPDATE:  Since my initial posting of this article, I have been advised that if you keep the wool wet, you will get an even better result.  I will try this with UGU and keep you posted. 

You never stop learning.  Thanks G. Abbott

De-chromafication

With Jade's bumpers, grille and headlights removed, a phone call from a really nice chap on the other side of the country who needed some chrome for his car, motivated me to get moving with the next stage of Jade's de-chromafication.

I few of the hip line trim pieces were already damaged making these a good place to start to see how easily the parts would come off; after all I didn't want to damage parts that someone else was able to use.

To my I surprised the hip line and sill trim pieces all come off very easily.  All I used was a cloth covered large flat screwdriver, and worked my way along each piece popping the clips out of the holders.  Jade may have been an exceptions as the trim had already been removed one already when Jade changed colour, cars with original paint may not be so easy.

Starting with a damaged one.  

Here you can see the red fixings that hold all the trim pieces in place.  

It is a simple press fixing.

So much chrome, part of the /8's appeal

 

The quarter panel hip line trim is almost 2metres long!!!

The sill trim for some reason had had new fixings points drilled into the sill which, with little consideration for the old one that were left unfilled, potentially assisted with the spread of moisture and therefore rust within the sills.  Not a good example of "out of sight, out of mind".

WHY??!!!! Why would you add twice as many holes into the sill?

Most alarming was the amount of crud that I found under the rear window trim.  This is of corner to me as UGU already has a rust blister under her back window which I have been trying to ignore, but seeing this I realise that I need to deal with it before winter arrives in June.

It is easy to see how rusting under the back window is so common 

when this much crud gets trapped under the trim.

Thankfully the clever folk at Mercedes-Benz in the late '60's must have know the day would come when I would need to post parts across Australia, so the rear window surround breaks down into several pieces thanks to these corner backing plates.

 Rear window trim as we would see it installed on the car

Rear window trim seen from the back with helpful backing plate holding the trim together 

A few of us have had lengthy discussions on W(A)114/115 debating a topic that gets a surprising amount of back lash from the purists: Chrome wheel-arch mouldings, WAM's for short.

Love them or hate them, WAM's appeal to a lot of people and are a common sight on many classic cars and, on the right body coloured car, I quite like them too, but being from the UK, I like many other people had concerns that they would trap moisture and lead to rust.  However, in our climate in Western Australia, we have busted this myth, it is simply not the case and Jade is another example of that.  Despite the huge amount of rust seemly everywhere in her body, the fenders and in near perfect, rust free condition.

WAM's removed and there is no evidence of rust on the 

fenders despite common misconception

Windscreen bottom lip trim and windscreen wiper cowl

So, with the chrome now all off, it's time to get them packed up and off to their new owner.

What's the next task you ask? hmmm, not sure yet so keep posted.