Well, actually it’s been up and running for a while now. It’s actually been nearly a year since my last post. While I have been procrastinating in writing another post, I haven’t been procrastinating with the car. Now you’ll have to bear with this extra long post as there’s a lot to catch up on.
After getting the fuel tank back, Bruno worked his magic and got it running! It wasn’t an easy job as the timing was completely wrong, the distributor cap was the incorrect one, he tidied up some wiring and replaced some of the lifters that were jamming, replaced the fuel distributor with a reconditioned unit, replaced the fuel accumulator, replace the warm up regulator – basically the entire fuel system got a going over. Now the previous owner told me it was 3-6 months since it last ran – I’d honestly be surprised if it was less than 5-6 years.
It’s running smoothly now except for one small (ok massive) detail – it’s billowing out blue smoke after it gets warmed up. It seems to clear up on the highway but it hates sitting in traffic. I’m not as bothered by this as I probably should be.
You see, one of the things I came to find out after getting the car home, was that the previous owners replaced the original engine. What they didn’t tell me is that they replace the 4.5L M117 with a 3.5L M116. What sort of a person would do such a thing?!?!?
Since I never take the easy way out of anything, this got me thinking … as long as I’m changing engines why not go for a 5.0L M117? It’s not a matching numbers car anyway, so originality is not really an issue. This is my chance to create a homage to the legendary 450SLC 5.0 cars that were homologated for rallying purposes.
Of course, I did say above I never take the easy way out, and now you’re about to find out why. The M117.985 engine that originally came with the car was a cast iron block with a 3 speed auto transmission. The 5.0L engines are alloy engines and typically are fitted with a 4 speed auto transmission. The 3 speed auto wont bolt up to an alloy engine, so now I’m up for a transmission swap too.
I started my search for a replacement engine and surprisingly it wasn’t difficult. At the time of my search John Greene from MB Spares in Fyshwick, ACT was having a clearout sale at the time I was searching for an engine. I told him what I was planning on doing and he said he would get back to me if he had anything. The following day he called to tell me he had the perfect solution for me – An M117.963 5.0L motor and matching 4 speed auto box with all (most) of the peripherals from a running but rusted out Mercedes-Benz 500SEC – and I can have them BOTH for just $600. Happy Days!!!
Well there was 1 slight issue with this too-good-to-be-true deal. I had to go pick it up in person as he wasn’t going to pack it up for me at that price. I hesitantly explained the situation to my wife and suggested we make a family day trip to Canberra out of it. To my surprise she agreed – Isn’t my wife awesome?
Oh, there was one other technical difficulty – I don’t own a ute! Or an engine hoist! After a few phone calls I managed to book a dual cab ute to hire and I managed to get an engine hoist from Supercheap Auto, effectively without paying anything out of pocket. Through a loyalty scheme I have through work, I had a few hundred dollars credit and was able to buy Supercheap Auto gift cards at a 5% discount. I swapped the credits in the system to the gift cards took them to Supercheap Auto and 10 minutes later I had an engine hoist.
Now, off to Canberra. Typically a trip to Canberra can be done in about 3 hours. So the plan was to leave at 6:00am be there by 9:00 pick up the engine, see some sites and head back .. well that was the plan. Of course in reality we didn’t leave the house until 9:30, then it was 10:30 by the time we got the ute, fitted the booster seats for the kids an went on our way. Given the delays we should at least be able to get to Cannberra, have lunch and then pick up the engine and head back.
But we were travelling with 2 toddlers, so what should have been 3 hours actually took 5. I do not know how to explain this. By the time we reached Canberra it was 3:30pm and we were now worried MB Spares would be closed before we got there.
Fortunately for me, we got there in time and I finally got to meet John in person. He’s a great guy who has lots of knowledge on all things Mercedes-Benz. He helped me load the engine on to the back of the ute with his forklift and gave me a list of things I’ll need to do to make this work:
- The engine sump on the S\SE\SEC is different to the one fitted to the SL\SLC, so I’ll need to find one and swap it over;
- Same thing for the oil filter housing;
- There’s a starter motor bulge on both sides of the transmission case. This will need to be chopped to get it to fit into the SLC;
- The 450SLC exhaust manifold may need to be slightly opened up where it mates to the motor with a die grinder;
- The rear transmission casing will need to be swapped out with one from a W124 E Class so that I can use my mechanical speedometer;
- Transmission wiring harness – also from a W124.
Holy crap! Where am I going to find all that stuff and what’s it going to cost?
No time to worry about that – I had a wife and 2 hungry toddlers with me who needed a feed. Now you wouldn’t think it would be that hard to find somewhere to eat at around 4:30pm in Canberra – but all the restaurants we went to were closed. After giving up hope of eating anything fancy, we drove the the nearest Hungry Jacks, fed the kids and headed home – well to my parents home. I don’t actually have a garage to keep these in. The 450SLC, the M109R (I’ll need to write about that), the daily drivers – they all sit outside under car covers.
So 4 hours later (yes we made many stops on the way back too) we were at my parents house. Remember the engine hoist I bought? It was still in pieces unboxed. So it’s 10:00 in the evening, and I’m trying to assemble and engine hoist, so that I can lift my new engine and gearbox off the back of the ute. After about 30 minutes we were ready to start lifting. Up it came, rolled to the back of the garage and back down again. What a day!
A few weeks passed, and I was talking to Bruno about my plans (let’s face it he’s at the top of the list for people to do this for me) and he mentioned that MB Classic Star in Greenacre happens to have a 380SLC that’s being wrecked. I gave him a call agreed on a price and 1 week later I had the parts. Awesome!
So now there’s a drivetrain project brewing. I know, it’s been nearly a year and you’re expecting me to say I’ve installed it – but no, 🙁 it’s still waiting for me to get to it.
In the mean time, I’ve made a list of other parts that I’ll need just because you should when you’re doing an engine swap of this kind:
- Engine sump gasket
- Oil filter housing gasket
- Oil filter
- Timing chain (leading cause of engine failure in M116/M117 engines)
- Timing chain guides
- Spark plugs
- Distributor cap
- Distributor rotor
- Water pump
- Water pump gasket
- Exhaust gasket
- Spark plugs
- Spark plug leads
- Rear main seal
- Transmission servicing kit (filter, gasket, oil)
All up that should be around $6-800 in parts. And I think I should order them soon.
That’s the end of that adventure for now. I still need to write up the seat repair, new fog lights and the ongoing wood trim restoration – the 2 week job that’s been going for a year (and still not done).
