I’ve been taking it pretty easy with Big Apple since December, and now that we’re heading into a long holiday season, it’s a good stopping point to take stock of what we’ve learned over the past month or so.
Preface
Like other projects in the past, we started with the interior after reviewing the project. The logic is that we always take over a car with a messy interior, which will affect my judgment to a certain extent, so we tidy up the interior first, and then drive to find problems belonging to the powertrain and chassis. I have defined Big Apple’s work as correction, which means that in many cases we will not strictly follow the standards of restoration.
I would like to add a few more things about this correction. First of all, Big Apple is an example that has been heavily modified aftermarket, so we have to recover his original appearance according to factory specs, according to the data card. Well, many original parts have been lost, so you can say that the car is no longer so original. For me this is more like a disclaimer, because I have encountered very picky peers (assholes) or so-called experts (narcissists) who like to make a fuss about some insignificant things and know nothing about the real details of these cars. Among them are many people who decided to give up saving this car, there were dozens of them reviewed this car before me. They neither knew that he was actually an S 420 (because it was registered as an S 500) nor its totaled history, they just kept repeating sadly that the car was no longer salvageable, mostly because of that screen and body damage.
I feel like I am becoming an environmentalist because I was tired of the wailing of cheap dealers and amateurs. Their devilish cries kept urging the seller to send this car to the junkyard or give it to them for next to nothing, so that they could dismantle it for parts. Well, although my first impression of Big Apple was quite disdainful (which is why I decided to take it half a year later), I knew right away that I could correct it to factory specs without any trouble. With just a few spare parts in our inventory, this car would be a head turner. Then the hoo-haters would not be able to tell what the car looked like before it was corrected. That’s what I call environmentalism, we dismantle a few donors a year and use the parts to keep more promising cars alive. Is there anything more green and peaceful?
The biggest difference between a correction and a restoration, as I define it, is the authenticity of the result. If we are restoring a car, we do it right the first time, which requires a lot of parts and knowledge. If we are correcting a car, such as the Big Apple, the first task is to get it out of the wrong specifications in the past, as to whether we have all the parts or absolutely healthy parts, which can be improved in future use. The authenticity of a correction is 8/10, and the authenticity of a restoration is 9.5/10. Therefore, a correction is a partial restoration, but it still passes. For me, the specifications are correct to make a restoration pass, and if the car is restored to the wrong specifications and cannot be reversed, then it can only be 0/10.
I believe the interior alone would transform this car, and it’s a step that adds motivation for further work. Once the interior is done, you know exactly what it’s like to sit in the car. It’s just like you envisioned it to be, and that’s good. Frankly, after too many 140s, I’ve become desensitized to the idea of a dream coming true. I don’t really crave a black leather interior, because I just need to get into my other car. But I still have a passion to save cars that are in need, especially examples that have been abused by owners and mechanics. OK, let’s get started.
Starting point
After evaluation and disassembly, we found basically all the problems. Frankly there are a lot of them, so to make the work more clear and logical, I have sorted them by SA group.
46 Steering
The Big Apple has a rather unsightly aftermarket wood trim steering wheel, which is in the garbage level. From the factory, the Big Apple only has black leather steering wheels without wood, and we have a few low mileage examples in our inventory that can be used. As a typical North American car, the Big Apple also has an electric adjustable steering column. Electrical work tests before the work showed that the longitudinal motor for the electric adjustment of the steering wheel was not working, and could only adjust fore and aft instead of up and down. Therefore, it was necessary to disassemble the motor on the steering column to repair it. I was not going to replace the steering column directly, that would be a hassle, if I was lucky, only a gear would need to be replaced.
54 Electrical equipment and instruments
This group had the most extensive work on the interior. The aftermarket or modified equipment added included Parktronic, multimedia screen, two different anti-theft systems. To make the Big Apple work properly, not only these devices had to be removed, but also the damage caused by installing them. Therefore, wiring harness work deep into the fuse box was essential. The Parktronic harness is all over the cabin and trunk, and the anti-theft system harness wraps around the car twice. The multimedia screen destroyed a lot of the original center console wiring harness, and the original plugs needed to be found and reconnected. The Big Apple’s dashboard does not produce the key-not-removed reminder tone that is unique to North American cars, so the instrument panel also needs to be repaired.
68 Panelling
Of course, the center console wood panel was completely destroyed by the screen. In order to install the screen, the plastic brackets of the evaporator cover and center tunnel covering were also cut off. Therefore, it is necessary to rebuild the entire dashboard. The dashboard is a replacement produced in 1999, which may be related to the Big Apple’s total history. Many parts are missing from the dashboard, such as screws and sound insulation. The person who worked on this car was violent and careless, and he broke almost everything on the dashboard. The front carpet was also damaged. When laying the screen wiring harness, they did not bother to remove the carpet but bent it, and now the carpet foam and metal brackets have separated.
69 Covering and lining
While the black parts have no fading issues, plastics are aging. The plastic parts on this car are pretty much broken, the sun visors, vanity mirrors, even the plastic backing of the A-pillar trim is cracked. The C-pillar was incorrectly wrapped and installed, the wrong fabric, the plastic is completely broken and can no longer be recycled. The headliner needs to be removed and thoroughly cleaned.
72, 73 Doors
The doors are pretty split. Since the rear doors of North American cars usually don’t have any extra electrical equipment like seat adjustments, few people touch them unless replacing the window lifters. So the Big Apple’s rear door panels are in great shape. The front doors are not, and amateurs have removed the front door panels so many times that the upper part is bent. Also, the wood panel for the seat switches is glued to the door panels with glass glue because the bracket for the seat switches has long been broken by them. The plastic window frames of both front doors have serious wear and tear, because these plastics have been covered with skin-feel paint since MY1997, and they are very wear-resistant.
78 Electric sliding/lifting roof
The sunroof is only operational up front, as the roof damper has fallen off and landed on the headliner, jamming the sunroof glass. The sunroof needs service anyway, so the sunroof assembly will need to be removed. This leaves the entire interior of the car with very little to show for it.
80 Vacuum system
We have a non-functioning factory central lock due to an aftermarket anti-theft system. Also a non-functioning door lock system, which is leaking somewhere. Since the vacuum distributor valve for the A/C is located in the dash, I will also take the opportunity to remove the dash to check that all flaps are working properly, which will reduce rework later.
82 Electrical system
It goes without saying that we should restore the factory radio, all factory switches, replace the broken interior lights, and remove the Parktronic.
91 Front seats
The best thing about the Big Apple is that its seats are in pretty good shape relative to the rest of the car. Only the driver’s seat has some wear on the outside. In this case, I will not re-stain it, but replace it with leather that has a similar grain to the stock one. The seatbelt buckle was badly faded, so we better restore it this time to avoid repeat disassembly in the future.
Okay, that sounds like it, not much? These are just the main issues. Since this car was worked on by a careless person, the problems were everywhere. For example, the plastic trim under the parking brake was also cracked, it is held by 3 plastic nuts, but we only have 1. So, everywhere needed work, and we had to go everywhere that others had gone. Overall, a thorough interior finishing.
Work process
I don’t have many photos of the process this time, because I videoed the whole process with my phone for the first time, and I only have one healthy phone. This is not only for showing off, but also for finding my way back when I get lost… It will be speed up and compress to show my kids, which is interesting for them. So I will be more roughly instead of explaining how each part is repaired like a tutorial.
First I removed the rear seats so that the tripod of phone can be placed on the rear floor. During the disassembly process there were a lot of broken parts, mostly from the previous work. For example the C-pillar was incorrectly wrapped and installed, the wrong cloth and completely damaged plastic that was no longer recyclable.
Since there was a lot of filler near the front of sunroof (from damage of falling objects, which is probably why it totaled), I first needed to check the damage on the inside of the roof, if it was serious I would have to replace the roof sheet metal. Fortunately the damage was only on the surface, but it was still a hassle to pull the dented sheet metal out later.
I then removed the front seats, they needed cleaning and repair. This was also a prelude to removing the dashboard, they would provide more room to work.
Center tunnel cover, which has been scrapped due to the cutting for installing the screen. All the plastic trims on it are also no more intact. Same prelude to removing the dashboard.
The repair history of this car is full of black glass glue, which forces you to destroy the part to remove it. The amateur repairmen are definitely not environmentalists, and the work they do is what I call “destroying the future of their descendants”. They are quite selfish, not good for the car itself or the next person who touches it, just to get the job done as quickly as possible. In fact, almost all the plastic parts inside this car are broken, which is why those sneaky car dealers didn’t rob him. Well, let me say it again, it was effortless to restore these.
With that out of the way, the steering wheel and dashboard came off. The date showed the dash was built in 1999, and this is a March 1997 car. It also has darker shade than the dashboard removed from a 1998 car. This dashboard only needed some light repairs, so I decided to keep this piece of history even though the replacement was ready.
And slowly the entire interior. The logic is that you should always install them back from the top, and disassemble them fron the bottom. Because there will always be something falling from the top that will make the bottom dirty. The addition of the sunroof made the logic of the work more or less complicated.
The sunroof could no longer move back because the vibration plate on the roof fell off and fell onto the headliner, jamming the glass. So the entire headliner and sunroof were also removed.
The sunroof was thoroughly cleaned and lubricated. The plastic rivet on one bracket broke, so the sunroof was always tilted to one side, I restored it, did a few manual tests, and then installed the sunroof back.
After cleaning and installing the headliner, I started working at lower heights. First, I removed the film from the glasses. The film was almost transparent, at first I thought it had no film.
Then I started to repair the steering column. Here I made several mistakes that led to redo. This is my first steering column adjustment gear replacement. Because I tightened the fixing bolts too much, although the vertical adjustment was fixed, the longitudinal extension was no longer possible. So I disassembled it and loosened the bolts again, drop by service of the core of the steering column.
Instrument cluster buzzer cannot beep if the key remains in lock cylinder while engine off, which is unique to North American cars. The disassembly of the circuit board shows the circuit was cut. After the welding recovery, the beep never stopped, which is why it was cut. Because the ignition lock is broken, the lock cylinder can’t rebound after the key is pulled out. For this reason, the ignition lock and the original lock cylinder was replaced. But the original lock cylinder and the new cylinder body wear to different degrees, so the key often gets stuck. Some lock pieces were grinded to make them fit better. By the way, the ignition lock was damaged because someone broke the plastic shell when disassembling the dash, and the dash was disassembled to install that screen. So, what damage a naive owner and an amateur craftman can do for that cheap modification.
After 10 months of sitting the refrigerant was still plenty so I assumed the evaporator didn’t need work and began a long and boring harness repair. The evaporator had obviously been worked on because the wiring was routed all wrong. I rerouted the wiring harness to a US 1998 S 320 and restored everything missing from the Big Apple dashboard interior, including two pieces of sound deadening.
Then I moved to the lowest level – cleaning and repairing the carpet. Even the carpet in this car suffered, because the carpet was bent unnecessarily during the laying of the screen wiring harness, resulting in the foam and support being separated, so even the carpet was replaced.
The purpose of installing the carpet was to install the dashboard later, so that we could work on a relatively flat floor, and the carpet would also prevent small parts from falling into the rugged floor wiring harness.
Install the B-pillar. I did not replace the shrinky B-pillar vinyl wrap because the exposed black plastic is not as noticeable. I am not that strict about this correction project…
Now the dashboard can be put back. There are many tasks that cannot be done alone, and other team members come to help. They usually prefer to stand aside because they know my crazy pursuit of doing the work myself.
New center tunnel cover. For cars starting with MY1997, the trim around the rear A/C vents no longer have a vinyl wrap, but have a skin-feel paint sprayed directly on the plastic. After years they get sticky. These parts are “upgraded” to premium parts from earlier cars, they last forever. But since the replacement part doesn’t have a channel for the North American car phone cable, I had to cancel the pre-installed phone cable in the armrest. OK, I’m waiting for the Pebble Beach judges to point out that I have the wrong trim, they’re not sticky. That’s all I’ll have to live with.
Put the seats back, install parts on dashbord over seat is much more comfortable than sitting on a bench or squatting. I replaced the worn driver backrest with a very fresh one. The leather grain is very close, they always are different…there is almost no wear on the leather now. For close to 140k miles this is quite remarkable. Further work involved disassembling the seat belt buckles and replacing the faded red buttons with fresh ones. These buttons came from the rear seat belts of an unused car, they are the same as the front ones and are always fresher. Of course, like everything else, the black plastics are bad. These black plastics are also from earlier cars of better quality.
By the way, I checked the A/C vacuum distribution valve and each flap for leaks at the last minute. There is no leak here. I should have done this earlier. If there was a problem, I might not be able to reach the leaking flap, so I was lucky.
Our senior staff checked in to see how I was doing and I could take a break. The S-Klasse seats are the best resting beds.
The center console wood trim is from a 1998 S 320. It is flawless and I polished it carefully. But it is not perfect because it has an extra roller blind switch. Also, it is a darker shade than the rest of the dash wood trim. This is a common problem of MY1998, not because of inconsistent fading. The center console wood trim of MY1998 is always darker than the dashboard.
One unexpected hassle was that the glove box cover, the wood trim and the dashboard were difficult to adjust. Factory-new cars have this problem to some extent, but now we are facing a replacement dashboard that is different from the factory car in some shapes. In order to make the wood trim fit as nice as possible, I spent a lot of time adjusting the position of the lock, the hinge, and the the wood trim . In the end, I had to put some “filler” on one side of the wood trim . To be honest, it was -8 °C that day and I ate 3 Magnums to get the stick.
All the plastic parts connect to dashboard were broken. Holy, I don’t remember which parts were not replaced, even the trim of the headlight switch was previously drilled with a hole. The plastic under the dashboard was broken, the cover of the internal circulation filter was fixed with glue, even the OBD II socket did not survive. These parts were all donated by the North American 1998 S 320. For the interior correction in the Big Apple, I took almost the same time to dismantle another car…
Gradually the camera was always on the dashboard, I forgot to shoot the door panels, the installation of the rear platform, but those are not remarkable. I also left the A-pillars and sun visors behind as the front roof will need to be corrected later. In the end I sped them up 64 times to make a complete video.
The most important thing is the restoration of the center console, which completely changed the feeling of the interior. The other work was just necessary, I touched the places where everyone’s hands had touched before to completely eradicate the influence of the previous work. Now the interior has changed from being worn, broken and desecrated to clean, working and stock. Swipe to check where all the effortless effort goes.
For the MY1997 interior, I learned a few new things since it’s my first experince:
- Armrest cover. The non-perforated armrest cover appeared during MY1997, it is not a documented technical improvement, nor is it a new feature of MY1998. For late MY1997 cars like Big Apple, there is a non-perforated armrest cover. For earlier MY1997 there is a conventional armrest.
- FBS X anti-theft system. Only for North American MY1997 cars, there is FBS X anti-theft. It has both a transponder and an infrared remote control, mixing the two anti-theft systems. When the ignition lock is unlocked by the mechanical key, the infrared anti-theft is also released.
- I had mistakenly thought the shift gate change was in MY1998, the new design allowed for direct shifting between 2nd and 4th gears. Big Apple has such new shift gate and I thought someone had replaced it. It’s actually a late MY1997 modification that had been around since February 1997, Big Apple was built right after that.
All right. I’ve been working on it on and off for about a month since December 2. Mentally I’m very relaxed and not tired like what Nonna’s restoration brought me. I often give myself a break to do other things, this is the rhythm that suits me. For Big Apple, we are 1/4 of the way there, so there are only 3 months of work. But I don’t mind delaying this project until this fall, because I’m not in a hurry at all… If I can restore one car per year, then I will have at least 30 cars when I’m 60. I don’t need so many cars, so, take my time.