“So my wife tells me this past weekend that she would REALLY like for me to try and get it running by spring. I know this is going to be next to impossible to do but I told her I would try my best.”
The54Project,
About 20 years ago my wife made a similar request of me. The vehicle was a night and day difference from yours, a 1960 Mercedes 190 SL, but the issues were the same:
Sentimental value having been in her family since the 1960s.
Totally neglected for decades.
Major rust damage, although it was not left out in the weather for 20 years like yours.
And that is just what was visible from a casual glance. There was not a single thing on that Mercedes that didn’t need major repair or full replacement.
As I started trying to “get it running”, every non-functional and damaged item I attempted to repair disclosed several other non-functional and damaged items. Although very few things can’t be repaired if you throw enough time and money at them that Mercedes was well beyond a challenge, from a practical perspective it was a lost cause.
If you look at the article linked below you’ll see that I welcome a challenge but after a few years of that Mercedes project my wife reluctantly admitted that it simply wasn’t worth the effect it was having on our lives. By then I had freshened up the brakes, got the VDO instruments working, got the Weber carburetors working, found a VW fuel pump kit that fit it, eliminated most of the coolant leaks, etc, etc, etc, and sometimes the engine would start and sometimes not. But there is a fool born every minute. In our case it was a Mercedes collector from New York and when he pushed the start button the engine miraculously started instantly. So he bought my wife’s rust bucket for almost twice what we paid for our first house in the 1970s. And he was the first guy to look at it. We probably could have sold it for even more. The guy estimated it would cost him another $250,000 to have it restored and he had no idea how bad it really was.
https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/334876/1936-chevy-3-55-rear-gear-conversion.htmlI’d be glad to go into more detail with you by private message if you’re interested.
