This is Part 4 of a series of posts on the automotive restoration of this 1957 Mercedes 300SL. Part 2 showed all the pieces we made in Part 1 TIG welded together and metal finished to make one headlight housing piece to now offer up to the body as one unit.  Part 3 showed grafting the housing into the body, metal finishing, and final assembly of the light, trim ring, and bumper to round off the restoration of the front left-hand side.

In this post we move at a faster pace, showing first the right hand rebuild of the headlight housing.  Then we move onto the inner and outer right hand fender rebuilds to completion.  Again the metal at the headlight is in a poor state, forcing us to remove the bad material and piece by piece reconstruct the headlight, due to the complexity in such a small area.  Once completed, we move around the corner to the right-hand fender, again the metal is extremely weak with no real body when bolted to the fender eyebrow.  This would be horrible to see if this area was painted and ripples formed in the body work, due to regular tightening of the bolts.  Our remedy is to replace the whole side of the fender with new metal to give excellent shape and structure.

Enjoy the build process.

Mercedes headlight restoration

Mercedes fender restoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2 showed all the pieces we made in Part 1 TIG welded together and metal finished to make one headlight housing piece to now offer up to the body as one unit.  Part 3 showed grafting the housing into the body, metal finishing, and final assembly of the light, trim ring, and bumper to round off the restoration of the front left-hand side.

The next post will show the restoration of the fender eyebrow to complete this side of the Mercedes.

For more information check out the automotive restoration services we provide at our workshop in Denver.