No E30....'73 Mercedes 220 Build Thread (hope you dont mind...) UPDATE 6/24 PICS!

[MJU1983]

In love with an old Benz right now...I may be joining the club.

Oh, and a Merc is a Mercury to us older gents.

Merc means Mercedes to Brits and most of Europe. I'd use the Hitler smiley but it just seems wrong.

[JubJub]

Tits dude, I'm in love with that interior.

[six2midnight]

Tits dude, I'm in love with that interior.

Thanks yes it is pretty mint. I love interiors. Almost more than the exterior. Hell I'm in it more anyways. Don't want to look at raddy cut up crap.

[Holland]

some pics of my old car for reference :D
when i got the e30 to replace it. someone smashed my driver QP, it then stopped running (blown head gasket) so i took a loss on it, cashed the insurance settlement, and sold it to a guy in sac for 400 bucks.


pics of the damage, well you can see it in this pic.







in its prime:


the day my parents bought it, then surprised me and told me it was my first car:





i have some pics of it being hauled away, but those ones hurt. haha.

And then your parents wondered if you were coming out of the closet when you got into BMW's...

[six2midnight]

Whoa!!!! I love bmws. Mercs are very classy but my passion will always be for BMW

[six2midnight]

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 6/22

First i found this photo and laughed, because i feel the same way everytime i work on this thing. these old mercs are def something. and parts are just insanely expensive. nothing like BMW. hell a plastic speaker grill for the dash is 85 bucks on ebay...stupid.



anyways of course i had to lower it. I was going to put time and money into a full on air ride system so i did what any hood rat would do and cut the springs. did a little research and fell on 3 coils in the front and 2 in the back. here is the progress:

it began....


pretty clean and rust free. the fronts are set up like a honda kinda. has an upper and lower control arm with spring in middle. shock is actually separate from the spring. its not a strut setup.

First i tried to knock the lower ball joint out, had a 10lb sledge whaling on it. nothing. so i said eff it, and took out the 2 bolts holding the lower control arm on. disconnected the shock. Had a jack under the lower control arm so it would fly down from the spring pressure. still very dangerous. so be careful if you attempt. a ton of spring pressure.


got it out. thing looks like a 8" lift spring on a jeep lol

you can see the lower control arm there just swung to side. only being held on by ball joing

measure and cut


back in.

how the front sat


nice little rake here. hot rod style

my friend thought it would be funny to photoshop a blower on it. haha

DAY 2: onto the rears

the rear is pretty much set up like a BMW. only usually when you disconnect shock, you can jump on the axel and it will move down enough to pop the spring out. not in this case. that thing would not move, even with shock disconnected. i really think the only way to get the spring out is to remove the 2 bolts to remove the lower control arm there. sorry i was not going to do that. I figured the rears did not have as much spring as the front. so i decided to pull a sketch ball move and cut the springs on the car :drink: (WARNING DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME...or be extremely careful.)


first cut


POW!!!! scared the crap out of me. almost died lol

now i could remove the coil i cut and just reinstall the rest of it.



On the other side, i ended up cutting about 90% through the coil. then using a 10lb sledge wacking the coil and it broke through. a lot safter than cutting straight through it.

here are the results:






what do you guys think? :-)

[lambo]

I think you're a crazy mofo

[canakami]

I think you're a crazy mofo

[difeliciantonio]

looks good justin. heres a older build he did to a e28 thats now called slow white

http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?p=14282746

[six2midnight]

oh not that crazy guyssss

[six2midnight]

looks good justin. heres a older build he did to a e28 thats now called slow white

http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/sho...php?p=14282746

thanks for the rep nick!

[E30 Wagen]

Sweet! I love old Mercs.

[freeride53]

I am loving the ride height. Well-done.

[six2midnight]

I am loving the ride height. Well-done.

Thanks! Not bad for first shot. I really didn't want to do the work twice lol

[Kevinxkrazy]

you put the wrong side of the spring on.
jk
look great. its awesome how a simple drop can make one hell of a difference