Cactus Jack

Well the second half of this week turned out unexpectedly. I am now the owner of three vehicles from the '60's!  It is at this point I wish to thank my very patient and understanding wife - love you babe.

So what have I bought? To be honest, I don't know yet.  Having paid a deposit sight unseen the process started in a similar way to the purchase of Leif, but this time I went to see my new acquisition and most importantly see and hear it run before finalising the purchase.

So lets start with the name to set the scene, "Cactus Jack".

Australian slang definition: Cactus: Dead, not functioning ("this bloody machine is cactus")
source: http://www.koalanet.com.au

And here he is:

"Cactus Jack"

So, no doubt you are wondering what the hell did you buy that for? Well here is the answer:

Still wondering? Well, what you are looking at is a Rover six cylinder engine.  Currently, Leif is running a Holden engine, so this new acquisition will give me the option of putting Leif back to original standard.  You see, there is method in my madness, haha.

I knew this engine was not original to Cactus Jack as the 88" Land Rovers were never produced in a six cylinder variant, but thanks to a friend with much more knowledge on the matter than me, we have determined from the engine number that the engine is most likely from a Rover P4, 100, dating it around 1961.

Under the dirt and grim, the engine number reads 650102285

Rover P4 which we assume Cactus Jack's engine is from

Rover P4, 100 Engine.  Just a bit cleaner than Cactus Jack's

As for Cactus Jack himself, he is in a terrible state of neglect and beyond economical repair, so I am not sure what the future holds for him, but here is what I have learnt about him so far thanks to the chassis number.

Cactus Jack's identification plates

Like Leif, he is a CKD (completely knocked down), built and assembled in Sydney by the Pressed Metal Corp.  Dated 1960, he is an early Series 2 (the first Series 2 was unveiled in April 1958), and he would have had a 2.25 petrol engine.
Cactus Jack has some early features that I hope to be able to extract from him and offer to fellow owners who have a vehicle of a similar vintage, but I don't know what they will clean up like; the initial inspection is not that great.

Left outside with no door tops, Cactus Jack is in very poor condition

Outside is not much better, but the bonnet catches are cool!

The badge is about the only shiny bit left!

What's next? Well thanks to a friend with a big warehouse and generous personality, Cactus Jack will be collected by Steve from Perth Tow, who collected both Jade and Leif, next week and put into storage for the next 6-7 months until my garage, the "Tyro Workshop" is built.  He will then come home to have a thorough wash before being inspected for salvageable bits.  Only then, with the help of some friends will I know if the engine is any good.  If it is, it will be extracted and prepped for transplantation into Leif.

I can't wait to get started, and begin my learning. This is way, way, way out of my knowledge and experience so it should be interesting.  Stay tuned!

Bye Bye Jade

Feeling pretty sad today, Jade is going to be picked up tomorrow by a friend who is going to remove her motor and gearbox to help save one last /8 before her rusty carcass finally is laid to rest.  I have stripped as much as I can and have lots of good bits that I hope will be able to help some other fellow enthusiasts.

This process has definitely made me realise I am not set up for the deconstruction of these beautiful cars, but rather as a lover of them.  Even though from the first few days of ownership of Jade, I knew she was destined to be a parts car, but that did not stop me getting attached to her.

My eyes have been opened to how luck I was when I bought UGU, she has next to no rust, thank goodness, and whilst temperamental, she is pretty bloody awesome!

You will no doubt have noticed that Jade is some what further dismantled than my previous posts, but I will back track and share my experiences with you all.

Bon voyage Jade, it has been educational.

Stripped and ready for collection.  

I still cannot get over how straight those panels are!!

I was amazed how easy it was to remove the windscreen!

I ran out of time to remove the heater, but hoping to learn another day

Fender removed and surprisingly no rust!

Reduce to a pile of parts and a few boxes.  Sad!

One last hurrah!

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.

Tyro Part Mart- Item 4: Dinner plates, clocks or wheel trims

Four original 14" wheel trims.

Some gutter rash as you would expect after 43 years of parking.  Perfectly usable and are still a very tight fit to the wheel so little chance of them coming off if installed correctly.

These wheel trims have not yet been polished or cleaned but still have a lot of shine to them which is a great sign of the bling to come!

Suitable for W108, W109, W111, W112, W113, W114, W115, W116 & W123 vehicles

Quantity - 4 only

Part number: N/A

AUD $80 excluding postage. 

A date with Jade

After the big race today (Melbourne Cup) I decided that instead of heading out to celebrate with those that won, and commiserate with those that lost, my time would be better spent with Jade.

With a two hour window before sun set I was quite pleased with my progress, from this:

to the much sadder looking:

I was really surprised how easily I was able to remove the parts absent in the second picture, but even more surprised at how bad I felt about dong this; a bit like destroying a work of art.

I know that all these bits could be easily bolted back on, and yes I know that the rust is right though her, and yes I know I don't have the time nor money to restore her, but still; I feel sad.

I started this afternoon's work by removing the front bumper which I found significantly easier than the back one, probably due to ease of access.

There are four bolts that hold the top bumper bar in place, and as this is a Series 1 six cylinder car, it also has the lower bumperettes which are fixed the top bumper bar but also have a further two bolts securing them to the valance.

Front bumper mounting viewed from inside the wheel well. 

 (Front bolt has been removed in this photograph)

Bumperette mounting seen from above and behind the bumper.  

No room for a racket here so open ended or ring spanner only

With the bumper off I removed the headlights, grille, windscreen wipers and cowling which are so simple an explanation would be insulting to you the reader.  

The battery has been disconnected since Jade was parked up, but today I took it out to find the battery tray rotten and a piece of flat metal inlaid to fill the hole.  I am not sure what an intact battery tray is supposed to took like as I have never check UGU's, but I certainly hope it doesn't look like this:

Rusty battery tray, rust, rust everywhere...

And finally, as a reminder to myself as to why I am doing this, a gentle poke of the passenger sill with a screwdriver, and the the score is, screwdriver 1, Jade, Nil!!!

Screwdriver 1, Jade Nil

Jade's weight loss begins

This morning in response to a parts request, I went out to check a few of Jade's interior parts which I had been storing safely in the boot as I have nowhere else to keep them.  You can imagine my annoyance when I was unable to unlock the boot!

After 5 minutes of fiddling with the lock and key my patience was wearing thin so I decided the best thing to do was walk away and come back to it later.

Later in the afternoon with a clearer head I went back to have another go, a further 20 minutes of fiddling n' twiddling with the key and a few swear words the key finally turned in the lock and I was able to open the boot; hurray! I was very relieved as there is no other way into the boot in these cars.

With the boot opened and an rare hour to spare, I decided to have a go at removing the back bumper which has been requested by a fellow MBCCWA member.

After a quick examination I located the four bolts that hold the bumper in place, two on the back and one on either side.  It is worth me mentioning that this is the long sided bumper which I understand was only fitted to W114's, that is 250 and 280 variants.  The smaller engined W115's had shorter / no side returns, and I would hazard a guess that they only have two bolts holding their bumpers on.

Note the length of the bumper returns on UGU....

.... compared to these shorter bumpers on this 220 (W115)

With the fixings location I sprayed them with a heavy dose of penetrating oil and set to work.  It is not possible to get a socket onto any of the fixings so a ring spanner was my weapon of choice, and a successful one at that.  The back fixings have a threaded bolt that is fixed to the car so it is just a nut that needs to be undone, on the sides it is the opposite, a bolt goes through the quarter panel into a nut that is an integral part of the side bracket.

Looking up at the bumper, back bracket of which there are two.  

The nut is what needs to be undone

Passenger side bumper fixing is located inside the boot once the boot side trim is removed.  I found the bolt to be too close to the bracket to use a socket and ratchet, so again a ring spanner was the best option

The drivers side was a little harder to spot initially as it is tucked in behind the jack cradle, petrol tank vent filter and on this car, behind the electric ariel  

I have to admit I was also a little distracted by Jade's internal water feature!  This channel was full of water, and of course rust!!

With the bolts undone, the bumper can be slipped off, however if you are dong this on a car that you are precious about, I would call a friend as it could be very easy to scratch the paintwork.

Once the fixings are all undo, it's time to phone a friend

This is what the back fixing point looks like

Job done.  Just needs a polish and then it's off to a new home

And just to confirm to myself that I am doing the right thing dismantling Jade, some more rust!

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: