Doug's Classic Coachworks was chosen to do the collision repair on this very nice low mileage 1970 Mercedes Benz 280SL classic car. It's fortunate and quite surprising that Mercedes still offers parts for this car. If you have access to a mid early 1980's Mitchel Crash estimating guide, you will find that you can multiply the parts prices by 10 and you'll be very close to current pricing. I was able to locate and borrow a manual from a local shop that has been in business for some time and saved some of the books from back then. I had a subscription back then but those manuals are long gone now.
The parts that I was able to get from the Mercedes dealer for this 1970 280SL are basically very nice. I did however find some substantial defects in the fender, and show that in one of the pictures. I had to pull the spline out of the rear portion of the fender, and separate the two part spline in order to get it to lay down properly. The fender was also chopped off square and too short, which required adding on to it.
We had to go with a used air cleaner canister because it was unavailable from Mercedes. The secondary AC condenser that sits behind the bumper will need repair as it is unavailable. Obviously it would be the first thing to be destroyed in most front end collisions. It is constructed of copper tubing and covered with aluminum tubing and fins. It's a rather unusual design but we will be able to save most of the condenser capacity by sectioning in some new tubing where it is smashed.
More pictures will be added as the project advances, so bookmark this link and come back again. Thanks, Doug
Undercoating a Mercedes correctly is not done with a can of rubberized undercoat. Mercedes used a very dense and heavy undercoating. This material is of waterbase makeup. Consequently, you will need to clean and prep the surface properly and coat the bare metal with epoxy primer so that the bare metal does not rust from the water in the undercoating. Compensation for this procedure is sometimes difficult to get from the insurance companies, however I will not compromise the repair process as a result.
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