Restoration Project 280CE

My 280CE coupe has suffered from road salt in the wintertime and has not been driven on a daily basis in approximately three years time due to an MOT failure. Because of the ridiculous amount of money needed to have a body shop weld and repair the car. The only option was to win the lottery, or do it yourself. The choice fell on the latter one. After some hard decisions and money well spent on welding equipment, the tool collection have been growing into a basic DIY mechanics workshop. The essential part here is the MIG gas welder. The rust is going to lose this battle for sure!

Late summer of 2011 the project getting the 280CE healthy again started. This is not intended to be complete a restoration of the car, the goal is rather to remove all the rust and rand replacing worn wear parts like rubber bushings with new ones. Although the paint job isn’t perfect, I don’t want to do a complete repaint yet. A respray must be done by a professional anyway. Engine and drive train are working perfect and don’t need much attention expect replacing worn bushings and regular fluid changes, and the leather interior is holding up good, but the cream colored carpets may need a clean after many years with dirty shoes and coffee spills. Hey I found a German Deutsch Mark coin under the seat!

The first job is to dismantle any parts from the car that need to be removed before rust termination and welding can proceed.

MIG Welder
ESAB MIG welder, Ready for fixing cars

By Robs

Passionate about vintage Mercedes Benz where driving, maintaining and learning new things and teaching others on the black arts of car maintenance.

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