Another Detail Day
Another Detail Day
Another Detail Day
Not detail in the sense of paint or exterior, but in lots of little detail items that I have in the queue that need to be done. With the car getting ready to go to the upholstery shop for it’s new headliner on Monday, I don’t want to tear into anything major for fear that I might run into a problem and not be able to get the car to the shop on Monday.
So with that in mind I’ve just poked around to find things here and there that need to be addressed in no particular order.
First in line was to replace the mirror glass in my driver’s side exterior rear view mirror. The mirror was fine, a bit worn from age, but I wanted to get new glass installed and a new retainer. A new mirror and retainer came this week courtesy of Alex at MBClassics.de, a great source for this sort of thing. I also got firewall insulation from him, too, but that’s going to have to wait for a bit.
So off comes the mirror and it gets disassembled and ready for cleaning.
The original mirror was still in good shape with nothing more than some wear on the glass around the perimeter. It along with the old retainer ring will go into storage in the event it’s needed. Note that the cork pads on the tension spring are pretty much gone. We’ll deal with that in a moment.
Some rubber cement and chrome polish are in order to get things sorted.
I used some left over felt from the window wood trim to replace the cork pads on the tension spring that goes behind the mirror.
Mirror housing back on the car, ready for reassembly.
And reassembled with new glass and retaining ring.
Next, to the trunk! I needed to replace the grommet for the vapor recovery lines from the gas filler tube where they pass through the trunk wall.
No pictures, but I also reinstalled the plastic covers that go down each side of the trunk floor to cover the wiring harnesses. I had removed them when I put the POR-15 on the trunk floor and wheel wells last week. So now what can I do.....?
Disassemble the grille, clean it and replace the trim strips! Here’s the grille removed from the car.
A bit dinged up in places and in a need of cleaning, but otherwise intact. It got disassembled, the chrome polished, the grille insert cleaned, and new trim strips. I’m not happy with them as they’re trim strips for later models, such as a W123 or W126. When I discovered this I decided to install them anyway. I’ll go back and clean up the originals and install them in the future. And here it is, new trim strips and polished.
Now I turned to the hood to clean the area where the grille mounts and prepare it for reinstallation of the grille. The old rubber strip had turned to a fossil, so I had to literally chip it off the hood. Once that was done, I stripped the surface to remove dirt and old wax, then wiped it down and waxed it.
Got the grille installed and then took a swing at the garnish moldings on either side of the hood. Got both off and cleaned them up, but broke one of the little square head retaining bolts. Looked them up in the EPC and nearly had a coronary when I saw how much they are!! A trip to the “majik drawers” at my local ACE Hardware tomorrow to see if I can find a suitable replacement.
While I was cleaning things up today I took the time to wash and scrub the dust off of the dash vent tubes so they would be nice and clean when it is time to reassemble the dash.
I also removed the interior light door switch on the passenger side front door, cleaned it and got it loosened up so it was working again.
Tomorrow the car gets prepped for the trip to the upholstery shop on Monday for it’s headliner replacement and new seals on the windshield and rear window. That means the rear seat comes out, the parcel shelf and seat belts, and the windlace off of the door openings.
Saturday, March 2, 2019