Bits and pieces electrically ...

I started preparing my "box" behind the glove compartment, which will house most of the electrical bits and pieces. Prepared a wooden plate, that will be installed underneath the passengers part of the dashboard ... two screws and it can be folded down ... and all relais, fuses will be easily accesible.

Also got the first two of five W126 15" steel rims ... looks better now and in the end with the 15" hubcaps it will look nice. Tyres will be the R107 standard 205/65-15, cheap to get (here in Germany I will need tyres with a spec up to 240km/h, which are really expensive in 14").

First Roadworthy Inspection ...

There's good news: A guy from the German TÜV (Roadworthy Inspection) came to visit and he was thoroughly impressed. Quote "I can see you have put a lot of effort into it" and "looks like Mercedes has designed it"!

We presented everything, nothing hidden, all accepted. For example the handbrake modifications (the long W115-one didn't fit the SL-axle and the SL-one was too short): The connectors are original Mercedes … from the first A-Class ;-)

Also we checked the wheels in extreme positions if they have enough room; the photo shows just one Wheel; when the engineer was present, we put a tyre underneath the front left AND the rear right tyre … maximum bending. It works!

Starting the Electrics ...

Yesterday we fiddled around with the harness of the R107 500SL. Took us a while to disconnect all automatic aircondition wiring (was about 20% of the harness). So we started to put that harness into the car and we more or less finished on the motor side.

It was a bit tricky, because not only the W115-vs-R107 adaptations had to be taken into account, but also the motor change from 117.962 to 117.960. Hopefully next week we can continue and when the sparks are flying, we know, that something went wrong ;-)

First Startup ...

In July we finished the provisional wiring and tried to startup. Checked the fuel pump, but it didn't start. What we found out after a while … the fuel pump was only happy to work for about half a minute and then died.

OK, ordered a new fuel pump at 16:00hrs and the next day 08:00hrs it was there. motor finally started up, but some problems have to be solved still:

It's only running on 7 cylindres, no. 4 isn't working properly. Also on cylinder no. 2, the manifold is leaking … both issues we have to find the reason still … I'll report!

First few metres ...

We drove the first few metres yesterday; however no real test drive as the motor still has two problems: it's only running on 7 cylindres and it has an overheating problem. We stopped here and my motor supplier has to get that in order ... I bought a "new" motor. At least the endoscope showed, that inside everything should be new ...

First real drive ...

Took a while due to holiday and work, but finally the car was ready to drive. It has been to the motor guy, but unfortunately he didn't finish the work satisfactorily. Still air in the cooling system and idle is still not perfect.

Good news: The whole drive train works, i. e. the other motor position together with the altered drive shaft and the SL-rear-axle are working. Big step here!

Quite funny: The car is alright for driving, but maybe not 100% police compatible. When we wanted to go for the drive, left the halls ... what stood at the neighbourhood fuel station? Police ... well we waited five minutes and headed off.