1969 Mercedes W115

[geoff115]

I thought I'd post a few pics of my latest project. I have owned this 69 MB 220d since October. Its in good shape and I thinks its pretty rare with a bench seat and column shift. In January I plan to start some body work, a few rust spots on the left side rear Qpanel, trunk floor and rear valance.

I saw quite a few W115s on air ride and that's why I bought this car in the first place.

After the bodywork is done I plan to install an air ride kit, and maybe put some classic lowrider rims . I started collecting some parts.

[Ray Singh]

Absolutely perfect. I love it. The colour suits it so well too.
Looks like a time warp car in the pictures.

We were planning a holiday in Malta next year. Are there many car treasures to be had over there? This may swing things a bit !!

Please keep us posted on progress.

[geoff115]

Thanks, yeah its really been cared for, and fully restored sometime in the 90's (my guess and from what the previous owner told me). It wasn't used for the past 3 years so I had to overhaul some stuff like brakes, prop centre bearing and some rubber bushings and linkages etc.

The classic/retro car scene in Malta is fantastic, in summer there is a rywb at the dragstrip once a week and on any given sunny weekend there is some event/cruise going on. If you make up your mind and know the dates I can find out what's going on then.

[raymondmarble]

Absolutely beautiful! My favourite Mercedes model.

[wolop]

This is stunning! beautiful body colour and the front bench seat is so so cool, is that the original interior or has it been retrimmed ?
Will keep an eye on this

[geoff115]

Thanks for the nice comments...the interior is all original, the body colour is not, it was originally a light blue metallic, but I love this colour and wouldn't change it. Not sure what its from but I saw W108 Merc in a very similar colour.

At the moment the engine is semi stripped, it was burning oil like crazy and it dried out the sump possibly causing a bearing to spin :S....I found the motor has been rebuilt (markings on the pistons) but the head wasn't torqued properly. I want to carry on to inspect the crank, I'll take some pics of the rebuild as I go along

[Awol]

Quality, I like this one buddy, bench seat is a cracking find ! I'll keep my eye on this one

[geoff115]

Here's a few pics of where I'm at. I removed the head, the gasket looks like its in great shape and in the first pic oil residue can be seen on the block (at the front just above the water pump). That's where the head was loose and oil leaking into cylinder 1, next is taking the engine out and remove the bottom half of the block that covers the crank.

The engine bay is in nice shape, I'll be detailing some engine parts as it goes back together

[geoff115]

Mail man brought me this :



but this comes first :S

[Mark]

Absolutely beautiful, great work!

[geoff115]

Slow but steady progress

Crank is back from the machine shop



Subframe was in nice shape but there was some rust showing up



After a lick of paint

[hairnet]

ooh

[geoff115]

Still working on rebuilding the engine, the block is being re-bored by a machine shop and should be done next week. In the mean time a friend had a parts car that was taking up space, so I bought the best parts it had..most panel are quite rust free but the body started corroding around the glass, floor pans etc..

[geoff115]

A few weeks ago I put the engine together, started it. Went fairly smooth but I had a problem with the new pistons, the recess on the CROWNs was slightly offset compared to the new ones and they didn`t clear the pre-heating chamber. I had them machined by 5mm by the machine shop I bought them from. I timed the diesel injection pump using the `drip method` which worked spot on. The engine has so much more torque after the rebore, its still a slow and heavy car

Next is the air ride installation

[geoff115]

After finishing the engine rebuild I started preparing the boot for the air suspension components. I'm planning to trim the trunk nicely, I'm leaving the airbag installation for last, so I'll take my time to install the air tank, controllers, compressor etc. I started by cutting out a false floor from plywood. I will bolt all the pieces of the kit to it to save drilling a lot of holes in the boot



Next I thought of a way to make a rack to hold the tank and all the components. I cut some scrap metal to size first



I tacked everything together to test fit the position of the tank in the trunk



I wasn't too happy with the height, after this pic I lowered the rack by 20mm and add some reinforcement. More pics later

[reap3rza]

Very Nice!! Would love to do bags on mine... But waaaaaayy to much monies here in South Africa

[geoff115]

It's on

[geoff115]

I just finished the air ride set up last week, here's a few pics. I say finished but I still need to find a way to adapt some shocks for the rear as the airbags took up the space of the factory shock thru coil. I also need to add the height sensors that make accuair kits different than the regular Air ride setups.

[l10mcu]

Looks great!

[carltonx]

soooo cool !