Restoration: A preview of Nonna

1/6 of 2024 has passed, but we don’t seem to have made much progress yet. Chinese New Year falls on February 9th this year, and then there’s almost a 15-day holiday, plus February is the shortest month…well, this year is going to go by faster than ever.

A huge visible project this year is the new restoration facility, so for the cars I’m only going to do some light projects. If ranked in order of acquisition, Chimera should be the next. However, we haven’t collected enough parts in the past 6 months, as coupe-exclusive parts are always very hard to find. Moreover, Chimera is a high-level full restoration project, which is expected to take more than 1 year. So I decided to put off work of it.

Nonna was acquired as a project in memory of my grandma and has been introduced in “Impression: The car reminds me grandma”. Overall it is in good shape and certified is a preservation example. This gave me the opportunity to give it some personal emotion: keep the way it is. My other cars all look like mint, on the Nonna we decided to keep some signs of age, like my grandma. It’s the project of rest of the 2024.

The debate over the scope of refinement of the preservation example is more contentious than a complete restoration, decisions must be made about what to preserve and what not to do. For example, if we rank an item’s condition from 0-100%, should those 20% items be kept? The point is that cars are a very complex chaos of organic and inorganic substances, and the conditions of each component can be very different after the same time and environment. And, some are repairable and some are irreparable. Some can be partially restored, some must be fully restored. The purpose of today is to debate the goals of each component.

Nonna lives on China’s southernmost island, Hainan, until I acquired it last year. That is the only tropical zone in China, which leads to some phenomena that will be presented one by one later. Owned by a single company. In 2018, it withdrew from service after the island banned cars registered before 2000 in the interest of green and peace. Instead of being immediately resold to other cities, it was collected by business owners for several years. When I took it over, her odometer stopped at 197,755 km. With a fragile gear display odometer, this may or may not be actual mileage.

Mercedes-Benz only keeps 3 warranty records, and by 22.10.1996, 2 years after registration, she had driven 23029 km. The island is not large and has no road connection to the mainland. If you are just driving around the islands, 10,000 km per year is reasonable. I tend to think that 197755 is the path she has walked.

Powertrain and Drivetrain

It sounded like the engine was running smoothly, but the speedometer and tachometer were not working, so a code read was done before a test drive. Luckily the engine didn’t have any codes. However the HHT reads the idle speed as 1200rpm, yes, higher. The next step is a vacuum leak test in an attempt to make a quick repair to get the car back on the road. The main leak came from the intake manifold, where the rubber tube connection had broken off and been glued together. There was no quick fix, so the car wasn’t taken out on the highway for extended testing.

Surprisingly there is almost no leakage from under the engine. This car comes from red earth, its bottom is covered with red mud, they are completely dry. Even so, basic maintenance must be performed. The Valave cover’s coating had completely peeled off and we still had to take the front axle out to perform thorough engine maintenance. The transmission shifts normally, but it makes a noise when the accelerator is released, and it sounds like a bearing is broken. This will be addressed all together when the engine is removed.

Chassis

The first moment I saw the Nonna I realized that the Nonna had a high ground clearance and it didn’t look like it had factory springs. The island where Nonna is located did not have many roads in the 1990s, so the first owner may have made modifications to enhance passability. The shock absorbers are still original and are 31 years old! I was hoping to keep this as a purely conservation example and just clean off all the red mud with dry ice, but I quickly saw the cracks in the subframe bushing. It seems, another axle-removed restoration.

The main difference with Octavius is that we may not be doing in-depth every screw and nut repairs. Nonna will be used as a frequently driven scooter in the future, and the first goal that needs to be ensured is safety, such as updating all rubber parts. In the process, I will also try to control costs, such as making my own fuel lines instead of buying gold-priced Genuine fuel lines. My grandma is a very frugal person and she would definitely not agree with spending unnecessary money on a car!

Body and Paint

Dividing the sheet metal into 11 parts, the paint readings prove that 5 parts are still original, including the hood. Original paint that is 31 years old tends to mean a lot of blemishes, note that only the main body of them is original, but there is extensive content that has been repaired or needs to be repaired. Scratching, peeling, door ding. Fortunately there’s no noticeable color difference visible from panel to panel, which is an asset to a used car dealer, but I’m really unhappy with the exaggerated paint reading on the driver’s door. Now we can keep it but wait 2-3 years before it has to be rebuilt. Originally I even decided to get a door with the same original paint and a similar production time to replace it, but the remaining 5 panels were not optimistic either. It would have been difficult to touch up dozens of spots on the silver metallic paint, so a full repaint was inevitable.

The trunk lid had received extensive damage from improper use. Apparently the chauffer of this car had long ignored the pop-up handle and decided to close the trunk with his fist. It was very difficult to PDR on this, so it was the only part decided to replace. If a replacement for the original paint in the same color is not collected in the next few months, we will have to reuse the trunk lid in a different color. For this reason, body and paint are left to last.

I was worried about a crash on her front because both headlights were updated to facelifts and the two turn signals were cheap replacements. But I was wrong, there were no accidents, it looks like the previous owner just wanted brighter headlights. All the lights are old or incorrect and they must be replaced.

Heating and Ventilation

AC is not an issue worth talking about alone, but it was a primary issue on Nonna from the beginning. But when we picked up the car, it had slid off the trailer along with a lot of antifreeze, which was leaking from the front of the rear axle. The car has SA code 582 independent rear A/C with a separate evaporator, apparently the rear pipes were leaking coolant. On initial inspection green cheap coolant was filling up under the carpet, still lucky it was coolant and not water! In the tropics, water can easily replace coolant.

Electrical Equipments

Being a less typical 140.033, the Nonna has quite a long options list. Fortunately, they are quite practical. For example, there is no sunroof, but there is an 810 BOSE sound system. The early sound system with the 0089 amplifier was the best in 140 history. All of the original sound system is present, but upon initial inspection not a single component is still functioning. In-depth sound maintenance will be one of the first parts of the job.

There are still many questions. Gauges that don’t work and are moldy, broken rear view mirrors, power seats that work intermittently. These will all be addressed together.

Interior

Nonna’s interior is one of the reasons why I fall in love with her. The lovely Zebravo wood trim looks almost flawless from a distance, and the beige leather has many signs of age, but nothing cracked. These two things will significantly reduce the repair work. Ignore that shifter, it’s a real eyesore.

I can imagine how much a proper polish could improve the Zebravo. No matter how closely you look at the leather, a lot of the paint has peeled off. It’s just that the leather itself happens to be beige, so it’s less noticeable. This is actually an advantage, we will not be re-staining, but rather restoring the seats to their original condition to the greatest extent possible.