new find 450 sel

[arcijack]

I purchased this 1980 450 sel as a parts car, my plans was to use various panels to restore the rusty euro 6.9 i recently bought, my son who is a professional welder decided he was going to repair the rust bucket. But to the point, the 450 sel i bought is virtually rust free from the ground up, interior is marginal, the engine has 126000 original miles and i poured fuel down the intake and she fired right up, almost hate to cut it up, i paid pennies on the dollars for the car, almost given to me ,pictures of the 450 sel let me know what you think?


Also i found a 1964 220 seb coupe thats has been sitting in a shed for about 14 years. Some rust but nothing major, i could get it for 1200.00, any comments on this car would be appreciated, arcijack

 

[260ebenz]

Quite like the front Mercedes plate.

Engine bay sadly showing it's age.

Good luck with the 450SEL arcijack.

Cheers Tim.

 

[Styria]

G'day Arcijack, that's not a bad looking car. If you are going to use it as a donor car, it should be excellent value for you. Pictures could be a bit more clear, but I think we can see enough.......

The speedo reading is interesting. Once or twice, in years gone by, I have referred to 6.9 Speedos with a reading very similar to yours. Now, I know this is a 450, but nevertheless the 6.9 Speedo that I had seen, had been referred to, had very similar calibrations. No one ever believed me. I should point out that the 450 reading goes as high as 240 kilometers an hour. Regards Styria

 

[abl567]

US DOT laws of the time legislated the 85mph speedo when the federal limit was 55mph, the intent was if the speedo only read to 85 then 55 would be considered a good speed.
The same laws that demanded only sealed beam head lights could be used so a replacement light could be easily found, even in the backest of backwaters.

This resulted in the ugly US headlights on the US delivered Benz's, even the gullwing and 600 Grand were affected by this compromised design.

Ironically the same laws resulted in the better looking (IMHO) stacked headlamps for the W111 coupes and cabs and V8 109/108 cars

 

[Styria]

Hi abl567, that's interesting information that I had not been familiar with. I had always believed that even 6.9s were de-tuned to the extent that 85 mph was the maximum they were capable of - silly me, of course I should have known better. Ah, those stacked headlights - really a work of art (in my opinion) yet, and I mean yet, the single large lens is de rigeur in the States. Go and figure ! Regards Styria

N.B. Incidentally, when I restored your car, we fitted those very specially shaped, and beautiful looking, Hella lamps. Do you think you might find the time to take a picture of those lenses and stick (stack) them on TK ? Just so that members understand what I am talking about.

 

[Oversize]

Don't you hate it when your 'parts car' is too nice to part out?! Nice colour combo and it even has Euro lights! Does it have a good history with books? If not, you're better off actually using it for parts, because your 6.9 will be worth much more when fully restored.

That is unless you're happy having another car to restore and searching for yet another parts 450 (where you could be faced with the same dilemma again)!

 

[Oversize]

If it didn't have air injection pipes I'd swear that was a 500SEL engine!

It'd pay you to get the vacuum cleaner out and check for rust in the plenum and firewall as per the following thread:

http://www.topklasse.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4390

If it has bad rust in these areas then it's a better candidate for a parts car...

 

[Styria]

Hi Arcijack, some very pertinent, and well meaning advice from Oversize. By all means, look at his thread that he recommends, but there is also an additional thread that covers the problem and rectrification of rust hereunder:

http://www.topklasse.org/forums/showthread.php?t=371

Regards Styria

 

[arcijack]

thanks guys, i cleaned up the engine a little today, will post pictures later

 

[arcijack]

i cleaned the engine and it looks great, i am going to pull engine and trans. and try to sell complete unit with all accessories left on,, i will sell on ebay later this spring, i have 2 6.9 now and i dont want to be the guy who buys cars and they sit around forever and they just fall apart.

 

[arcijack]

cleaned engine

 

[260ebenz]

Engine looks much better now all the best with the car.