Newsletter No.062, CLK GTR for sale, Restoration projects..
Newsletter Number 62
11th August 2003
Hello and welcome to another newsletter.
Hello again. This Newsletter we have good news for prospective CLK Cabriolet buyers, news of a rare CLK GTR that is for sale and a few excellent restoration projects for sale.
John Green.
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Thanks.
New service manager.
Last Newsletter I hinted that we have a new Service Manager coming to work with us. Chris Righton started with us on the 4th of August in this position. Chris is a certified Mercedes-Benz fanatic. His every day car is our old 280E race car! And he still has his Dads 250 sedan that he helped him pick up from the factory in Germany in 1971. You can e-mail Chris here: service@mbspares.com.au
Is your boot rubber correctly installed?
Over the years we have sold a lot of boot rubbers, we have also fitted quite a few in the workshop. However, we have also had to "refit" quite a few aswell. Have a look at these two pictures:
We see lots of boot seals that have been incorrectly fitted. The picture on the right is the correct way. When installed like this the pressure that the boot puts on the top of the seal when closed, makes it fold over and seal off the boot. It also makes a channel for the water to run in. When installed incorrectly (left hand picture) the pressure of the closed boot folds the seal over the wrong way!
Driving in the rain.
Whilst many Mercedes-Benz convertible owners would never purposely let there car get caught in the rain it is bound to happen sometime in a cars life. However there is one thing worse than rain when you are driving an convertible and that is lightning. So if top down motoring is your style, the clever chaps at Daimler Chrysler have designed the new CLK Cabriolet to protect you from lightning strikes! The following text is a recent press release from Daimler Chrysler:
In the middle of a storm with the soft top down, occupants of the new Mercedes-Benz CLK Class Cabriolet are just as well protected against lightning as passengers in cars with a rigid roof. This was one of the findings of an extensive series of tests commissioned by Mercedes-Benz and performed by the Institute for High Voltage and Power Engineering at Berlin's Technical University.
The state of the art steel and aluminium design of the CLK soft top featuring main mounts that are each fastened to the car body at three points shields the car interior from the powerful electrical fields generated by lightning strikes. In the event of such a strike, the longitudinal struts and cross members that make up the soft-top frame assembly act like a Faraday Cage, thus allowing the electrical current to flow towards the outside of the frame and ensuring that the car interior remains a "field-free zone". This principle was discovered by the British physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) at the beginning of the 19th century and still forms the basis for all sophisticated lightning protection systems to this day.
During the series of laboratory tests carried out at Berlin's Institute for High Voltage and Power Engineering, scientists discharged several dozen lightning impulses across the CLK Cabriolet using powerful capacitors connected in series. Lightning impulses of up to 1.4 million volts were achieved during the course of these tests. Measure-ment of the electrical field strength inside the closed CLK Cabriolet confirmed the protective effect of the soft-top structure acting as a Faraday Cage: the lightning current was guided harmlessly to ground via the soft-top frame assembly, the car body and the tyres.
Thanks to reliable shielding, the electronic systems on board the CLK Cabriolet also proved immune to the powerful electromagnetic field generated by the lightning current in each of the tests.
In the past year, there were some 2.9 million cases of lightning discharge during storms over Germany, Austria and Switzerland, compared to around 2.2 million cases in 2001. The highest lightning incidences were recorded in the months of June, July and August. With over 190,000 incidences, June 20 was Germany's most prolific day for lightning in the year 2002. Lightning is discharged around one million times per hour above the Earth's surface.
Cars for dismantling
Two new cars this week. However both are hopefully to be sold as complete cars for restoration. As you will see below we have sold the 87 190E. We traded a rather sad looking W110 230 short Finnie on it. The 230 version of the W110 chassis is a bit of a half bread version of the W111. Most W110 Finnies are four cylinder cars, the 230 has the six cylinder engine from the bigger W111, in the small body. The engine is so tight in the engine bay that the radiator is inside the radiator support panel, not bolted to the back of it. I guess it is a bit like the 190E 2.6!
The previous owner had driven it for 24 years and loved it to death, however the time had come for a car with power steering and air conditioning. Whilst first looks will disappoint, this car is a real gem if you are looking for something like this to restore. The big plus is that it has NO rust and the chrome is great. In fact it has one of the best bodies I have seen on a Finnie for years. The cars major fault is that it has a burnt out exhaust valve on one cylinder and the engine does not run well.
We also brought a 1960 190b. It is also a great start for someone looking to restore a car like this. Great body and trim. It was registered until a month ago. It has a rebuilt diff that we supplied only 12 months ago and new tail lamps. It was taken off the road as it has a blown head gasket. (the diff and tail lights are worth $1500.00 if you are restoring one of these)
Newsletter subscriptions.
If you have not SUBSCRIBED to the website, this is the last Newsletter that you will be getting. The time has finally come to ditch the old system, there are however a few subscribers left on it. So if you have not SUBSCRIBED please do so as we would hate to lose you.
Links of the week.
This weeks link of the week was sent in by one of our Newsletter Subscribers. Click here to visit Carcity in Hong Kong. If you have the spare cash lying around you can buy a CLK GTR from them. Other vehicles of note that they currently have for sale, include a rare 600 Pullman and a 190SL. You can also check out the traffic in Hong Kong from this site.
And for those of you who don't believe in "Left handed screw drivers" or 'Stripped paint" here is a website that should help solve a few myths for you. However don't laugh too hard. Those of you with an early Roundie or Finnie should go and get your Owners hand book and check out the list of Approved Lubricates. The following is a quote from the 190 book:
Lubricants:
Blinker switch: 1 gram kellog grease M 1/2, manufactured by Riedel-de Haen
AG, Seelze near Hannover, Germany.
If you have seen any great sites on the web, we need to know about them. Please e-mail them to me.
As advised in the last newsletter we have changed the way we list the cars for sale in the Newsletter. The down side of the change is that you don't get a picture of each car with the Newsletter, but the upside is that there is now an exterior and interior shot of each car on the site. Please click on the vehicle description below if you are interested.
Click here to see all the cars for sale.
As with all changes we make over the years to the Newsletter, if you don't like it please let me know!
Cars sold:
190E 87 model 167000kms
500SEL 84 model 121000mls
560SEL 86 model 241000kms
230E 86 model 153000kms
The following cars have recently arrived for sale:
E280 wagon 97 model 150000kms
Also in stock we have:
Collection of three factory Stretch Mercedes-Benz's
So that's it for another newsletter. Hope you liked what you saw. If you have any ideas or want to contribute any articles, pictures or other material please e-mail me here. Also, don't forget that you can check out the old newsletters here
Thanks, John Green.
