Meticulous work on a rare Mercedes Benz
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
A LITTLE over a month ago, a customer dropped off a very rare Mercedes Benz 280SE Coupe in the shop. He wanted it prepared for the Tour de Cebu. It is such a beautiful and rare car that there are only a handful of them in the country. I initially was under the impression that our job was just to get it mechanically in shape so that it could do the 1,000-kilometer journey reliably. When I saw the to-do-list, the client also wanted his car to look great. The paint and chrome trimmings were dull, while he had a new completely re-upholstered interior coming. So the first challenge was to make the exterior look as good as the interior. Now this was a challenge. We only had a month and there was not enough time for a re-chrome and a re-spray of the car. The only option was to polish everything.
Polishing chrome trims of a rare Mercedes Benz was quite scary. Every single component had to be worked on slowly and carefully as one mistake would mean possibly destroying something that may be irreplaceable.
For the paint, we had to do a multiple step polishing of the car. We started with very light sanding, then applying a coarse compound wax polish, followed by a fine compound polish. It may sound easy but it is not. When polishing a car to car show quality everything is important, from the polish to the foam used to apply the polish, the type of polisher being used, and the cloth used to wipe off the polish. An experienced and well-trained person must also do the work, cut too little and the fine scratches and swirl marks will not be removed; cut too much and you will erase the paint. Work on this classic had to be meticulous, careful and with attention to detail. After all the detail work and the interior was installed the car was stunning. It looked brand new again.
Getting this car to look good was the least of our problems. I thought that all this car needed was a tune-up and an oil change, I was wrong. The engine did not sound right and did not run right. The power was just not there and there appeared to be hint steam coming out of the exhaust. I had a compression test done and cylinder number 5 had no compression. This meant that we had to take apart an engine of a rare car that is equipped with a mechanical fuel injection system, something that only a few handful of people in the world know how to repair and fix properly.
The disassembly of the engine had to be done with extraordinary care so as to not mess up the mechanical fuel injection system. Every single component had to be labeled and every single step photographed. The problem was found, it was a blown head gasket. This scared me because a blown head gasket meant it could have been probably caused by an overheating condition sometime ago. This meant, it could happen again if all we do is replace the head gasket. We have to understand what caused the overheat in the past and solve it. Thus, when the engine was re-assembled we cleaned the whole cooling system and replaced necessary hoses.
When we got the car fired up again, it was a lot better than when we got it, but it was not quite there yet. A little tweaking with the air/fuel mixture and ignition timing, and the engine started singing. The car was alive and well. It was only a couple of hours before the car had to be brought to SM Seaside City for the beginning of the Tour de Cebu activities. We did it. We delivered the car on time but the mission was not over yet. The car still had to complete the 1,000-kilometer Tour de Cebu.
For the next few days, I was following the Tour de Cebu on social media and at every stage I would see a picture of the car. This meant it was running and was okay. At the end of the Tour de Cebu, I get the news that the car ran trouble-free the entire event. I felt so accomplished, most especially because this car was originally owned by my client’s mother and I had the privilege of being able to be part of bringing it back to its former glory for the entire family of my client to enjoy.
