[Heybuck]

Marv,

Just a thought.... Have a look at a colour called "Petrol Blue" used on 1986 era 280CE Mercedes. It's a great colour. They had it on the W123 series cars.

Also, are we going to read a build story about your barge in Street Machine?

Ian

[Marv]

Whoa, that is a nice colour. The other option I was thinking of was VW Jamiakablau (Jamaica Blue) but a mate is painting his '62 Bonneveille HT that colour. I'd prefer to stay on the blue side of teal rather than the green - no matter what colour I paint it the thing is going to stick out on the road Down Under!

I have been photographing stories on installing the air suspension and the air conditioning, both of which will end up in Street Machine (or on their website) but as yet there are no plans to feature my car in the mag as it's just too mild and not really desirable enough to feature - it's definitely NOT a show car!

[Heybuck]

Try and get a colour chip on "Petrol Blue".

Before I posted I Googled Petrol Blue Mercedes Benz and there is a pretty wide range of colours shown, mostly due to the competency of the various photographers.

An old mate of mine had a 280CE AMG (understood to be the first AMG imported into Melbourne and shown on the 1985 Lanes Motors stand at the Melbourne Motor Show). Amazing colour. It looked green in some light, blue in other light.

But those Mitsubishi colours are pretty good too.

"Street Machine" needs a regular "how to" page. Your car and processes sure would qualify mate. We don't all drive show cars.

[Marv]

I am going to have a look at my mate's swatch packs - he has pretty much all the colours from the main manufacturers sold in Australia between 2000-2010.

Blues and teals can be incredibly difficult to photograph as they flip depending on the light situation, camera settings, etc.

[Marv]

So, thanks to Photobucket killing hotlinking 99% of the photos in this thread are now dead. I've saved all the pics and am investigating a way to host them on my own website so I know I'll never have hotlinking problems in the future. I was thinking of doing my own website, but I like updating specific threads on forums rather than just posting a link to a website and getting people to navigate off the forum to read my update. I'll ponder more on this - I definitely want to put all the tech and reference photos back up as hopefully it will help others with these cars!

Work has been slow on my car as I've had a very busy couple of months, but we are on the home stretch at United Speed Shop. One big hurdle has been fitting the Master Power brake kit I bought for my car, as it simply is not a bolt-on solution. Problems include:

- The pushrod to connect to my brake pedal is far, far too long and will need at least 60-70% of the rod cut down and re-threaded to fit the standard non-assisted drum pedal.
- The booster/master cylinder combo sits against my inner front guard
- The brake hardlines supplied do not fit between the master cylinder and the distribution block

It is a great shame because the kit looks the goods and is well-sorted with all the parts I'd need. Given I am so far away from the USA (and we have ZERO access to US-spec Pontiac parts in wrecking yards down here) I went with Master Power so I could have everything delivered in one go and I wouldn't have to hunt for random other parts. Thankfully, making new brake hardlines and cutting/threading the pushrod isn't a tough job for Ryan and the boys at United, and I'm sure we can work out a way to either notch the inner guard or make a brace to lift the booster up.

This past weekend I replaced a chunk of the steering with a new box, drag link, new inner and outer tie-rods, tie-rod adjusters, and the idler arm.. I have also removed the upper control arms to get the new top bushes pressed in, before I paint them and take them back to refit, along with new upper and lower balljoints. I'll also whip the front spindles off, wire-wheel them and put them back on so they're all nice and fresh.

[Old Goat 67]

Just put them here. You need to rotate them before uploading.

[Old Goat 67]

See post #26 here.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...44#post5762044

[Marv]

Thanks Old Goat 67

[Old Goat 67]

You are Welcome.

[Marv]

I wrote up fitting Vintage Air A/C to my car on the United web site -

https://unitedspeedshop.com/blogs/te...o-your-classic

Acuair ENDO-VT & E-level info:
https://unitedspeedshop.com/blogs/te...ccuair-endo-vt

I ordered some new parts from Master Power Brakes last week and today I fitted them up. Great success... after I cut the olive nuts off the hardline, switched them over so they fitted, then re-flared the lines. The new bracket Master Power supplied is way different to the old bracket which tells me I was supplied the wrong parts initially - no biggie, but handy info in case anyone else out there comes up against these issues with these kits. We still have to cut and re-thread the pushrod that attaches to the pedal, plus make new hardlines that run from the distribution block to the front rubber lines, and one to the rear lines. These aren't huge jobs but still more work to do.







I also got new ball joints for this thing and stuck the lowers in while I wait for the shop to press in my new upper control arm bushes so I can fit those ball joints, and United Speed Shop will also powder coat the spindles, disc brake brackets and steering arms . I stuck some black rattle can paint on the arms just to not leave them bare. I could've got them powder coated but they'd really need a blast and some more finishing/detailing to do the powder justice.




Once they're done I'll do the drive back up to Newcastle to bolt it all together, grease and torque up the steering, and get the front-end back down on the ground.

The list of jobs left to do isn't massive -
- bolt tailshaft in
- refit front suspension
- bleed brakes
- paint & install steering column
- powder coat dashboard
- weld up remaining trim holes (front guards & rear boot valance)
- fix remaining rust (boot)
- make door buttons
- refit inner guards
- fit Lokar throttle, kick-down & cable-shift kits
- charge air con
- put KBS tank cleaner kit into fuel tank, paint it & refit it
- Powdercoat & fit battery box
- Wire-up & fit external battery charge/jump points (behind rear bumper?)
- Fit remote boot opening solenoid & fit button to open it
- Fill transmission with oil
- Change engine oil & filter

I'm also waiting on paint and trim quotes now...

[gtospieg]

Sounds like you're making good progress...I had to go to your other site to see the pics as none are showing up here

[Marv]

Sometimes it feels like I'm coming to the end of a long build... then I realise I still have paint, trim and reassembly to go. And then there's the alu Edelbrock heads, Gear Vendors overdrive, and EFI set-up I want to eventually do.

Pic links should be fixed now (they're showing for me).

[Stuart]

Pics in your last post aren't showing for me....

[Heybuck]

No pics for me either Marv.

But do I care????? Not today. I'm off in the morning driving up the Newell to Brisbane, over to Morton Island, then back and over to the Carnarvon National Park, then over to Birdsville, into the Simpson Desert, back to Birdsville and down the Birdsville Track to Marree, Burra, Dimboola & home on Aug 20th.

8 guys, 4 x 4WD vehicles. NO WOMEN so plenty of grog and BBQ. Camping all the way.

Can't wait. I'm driving a mates 200 series Landcruiser. With him. He's got Parkinsons and this will be his last long trip so I'll drive and he can take it easy.

See you when I get home.....

Ian

[krisr]

The latest update has broken pics for me too so I can't see if this is nearing skid ready or not!

[Marv]

Bugger. I've moved most of the pics from this thread into a public Dropbox folder - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wusez6on4...mm1gB70ma?dl=0

Unfortunately there are no captions so it's like a 330-page flip book

[Marv]

Right, so the front suspension of my car is back together! I ended up stripping out the top control arms, spindles and steering arms, cleaning them up and getting them powder coated along with the brackets Master Power Brakes supplied with their disc conversion kit.



I blew the old control arms apart and threw out the ball-joints when I saw how old and flogged out it all was. The car drove pretty well but if I have it apart now i may as well tighten all this gear up now, right? Plus, it's easy stuff to do!



While I've had some issues with other parts of the kit, mostly from incorrect parts being initially supplied, bolting up the actual discs and calipers was easy as pie and I found them very good quality.

Having all new steering and ball joints made the job much cleaner and nicer to do! I did have to clean up the wheel bearing adapter (hammered onto spindle using a piece of pipe) with some Scotchbrite as there was some surface rust on it but that wasn't hard and it was a nice piece.


I will see how long these cheap wheel bearings last but it won't be hard to change them out if they do fail and I won't be doing huge miles in this car every day of the week.


All done in around an hour, including torquing-up the steering arms and installing split-pins.


In the aim of making the car drive straight and true at 80mph I've now fitted:
- Upper & lower ball-joints
- Drag-link
- Idler arm
- Tie-rod adjusters
- Tie rods
- Steering box (short ratio)
- Upper control arm bushes & shafts
- Wheel bearings
- Disc brakes

I'll have to take my grease gun up to Ryan's to finish it off, and also bleed the power steering with fresh fluid in the new steering box.

I probably should have powder coated the top control arms but I would have needed to get them media blasted first.... and then I'd have wanted to pull the bottom arms out... and then I'd have been tempted to pull the whole chassis (I have plans to do that later on, including converting to a more modern steering rack/tube arm front-end and IRS down the back - but that'll happen several years from now!)

[krisr]

Originally Posted by Marv

and then I'd have been tempted to pull the whole chassis (I have plans to do that later on, including converting to a more modern steering rack/tube arm front-end and IRS down the back - but that'll happen several years from now!)

Don't talk to Beachball then!! I was going to just POR-15 my chassis, nekminnit... chassis out to weld any cracks, then repainted firewall and everything coated...

[Marv]

Some more shots of the front-end as I can only upload 5 shots at once to the forum...


Here is the bracket that was originally supplied to bolt to the master cylinder...


... and the one that re-supplied that does actually fit.


I swapped the olive nuts over on these hard lines, then re-flared them.


Bolted up sweet.


Clearance is good for the discs. They easily clear the 17in wheels I'm using but I am 99% sure they wouldn't clear the original drum-spec 15s.

[Marv]

Oh, and Ryan has fitted the adjustable battery box he designed. He came up with these slick units that can fit everything from a tiny motorsport lightweight battery to a huge Optima or marine battery after he was messed around getting battery boxes from Summit.

Originally Posted by krisr

Don't talk to Beachball then!! I was going to just POR-15 my chassis, nekminnit... chassis out to weld any cracks, then repainted firewall and everything coated...

LOL - I'd just get Ryan to do me a front-end seeing how he's now got his Magnum front-ends online. He even does tube arm kits