Pocher Mercedes 540K True Roadster Build

[larchiefeng]

Poul, here's the terminal connector I was referring to; a great idea but, not for this terminal block. First shot shows that they don't line up and the second shows the metal prongs are too big to fit in the block. This is what happens when you buy online from two different sources.

[Codger]

A lot of fussy work but you could solder up a whole batch of individual connectors...

[Pouln]

Pity it doesn't work, Wayne. Would have been a good solution.

Now, you better order a new connector block from the source where you bought the terminal connector AND a new terminal connector from the source where you bought the connector block. That way you can use the other set in your next Pocher project.

I remember you have some projects to finish (and more to start).

[Codger]

Hey that universal jig you made is the business! Works with all the classics right? Several guys here have multiple Pochers.

How many have you sold?

[larchiefeng]

I decided to order two new terminal blocks; one to fit the bridge connectors and another one that is already bridged. Yes, Poul, I do have another Pocher project that will be wired up; the Testarossa. No, Mr. C, I have not made any to sell but, I have all the supplies to start making a few this summer when things warm up. I still need to make one more modification for height adjustment then it will be ready. OK, to the business at hand, I've been busy with lots of little detail things but, first I received the mini connectors for the wiring so I can run all the wiring and then just plug in the headlights and tail lights during final assembly. The first picture shows the size.

I've been working around finishing this section of the build up until I was done with all the floor and body fitting with the interior. Now, I have the light switch wired up inside the transmission and the only thing left to do is button up this part of the build. So, the transmission goes in then the drive shaft followed by the mufflers.

Empty space:

Transmission first:

Drive shaft parts to be assembled;

Assembled and installed from the top:

And the bottom:

Exhaust system installed completely except the fish tail tailpipe tips. It's hard to see with the flash but I lightly misted the exhaust head pipe with Alclad hot blue exhaust :

I was trying to show the brass tailpipe holders but, they're hard to see. Lots of Alclad here:

A slightly better picture from the rear. This does it it for the undercarriage if it gets flipped over again it will be to run some wiring. The floor goes in after I wire the e-brake cable to the hand lever.

Up next will be some small engine finish details like upper radiator hoses, flex exhaust pipes, tightening down the grille shell etc. Then, wiring and final dash detail and we're getting close to finishing this over year long project. When it's done I'll go back to the Testarossa and start another big project on either another Pocher or a MFH kit; I haven't decided yet.

[Pouln]

Fantastic, Wayne. Looking real good.

Love it how it all comes together.

[Pouln]

Ah, about the jig. Duties will make it next to impossible, which is a pity.

[Codger]

The jig height-adjustment feature and ability to spread base apart side-to-side are ideal for Rolls builders like me. That would allow inverting the model with full body attached. Wish I had it two years ago...

Brilliant planning and engineering = trouble-free and immaculate assembly. I'm waiting until completion to see beautiful, daylight pictures taken on your back deck...

[larchiefeng]

Sorry about the photo quality but, I don't have much light over in the area where the card table is. I was just trying to get a few shots on my phone to post yesterday. I'm afraid that today was a lazy day in front of the TV watching the F-1 race. I might get back to it later this evening after dinner but, tomorrow for sure. Today, I'm actually going back over all my notes and the to-do lists, in order to make sure I haven't missed anything. I'm making a new list so, I have a starting point and a new more refined list of things left to do from here on out.

[larchiefeng]

So far today, I managed to get the carpet installed on the floor pan and afterwards I saw some areas that I'm going to add carpet on the body down sort of under the doors extending up toward see the first picture for the spot.

I'm also going to make a couple of chrome sill plates for the body step in, see picture.

Here's just a couple of basic interior shots with the new carpet. I still need to paint the shift lever knob cream color and and add the knob for the e-brake and both of those openings will get leather boots over the openings.

Rear view with the doors open and closed

One of the next projects tonight will be to modify the fitting off of the manifold and cut and shape the new flexible chrome exhaust pipes and install.

Like I mentioned before, there are still lots of little details that need to be completed and added to the interior and engine. I'm going to try and wrap most of this stuff up today and tomorrow while I'm waiting on the new wiring terminal block. More later if I have time.

[sharknose156]

Great work, the car's details, paint, leather, look absolutely fantastic.

did you use Alclad Polished Aluminum for the engine ?

Edited April 5, 2016 by sharknose156

[rjfk2002]

Wow. Stunning work Wayne!!! I love how it's all coming together. The doors look great. I know the contrasting leather in the doors wasn't the original plan but I think it's better this way. The chrome strips on the door that was solder wire correct? How did you do the chrome strips on the seats too?

Looking forward to seeing how you wire up the lighting

[Codger]

Man that cockpit looks fantastic............

[Jnkm13]

This build is looking mighty fine! All effort so far has paid off handsomely.

[Pouln]

Oh my, the dash, seats and carpet. They look fantastic in combination with the doors. Got to take your shoes off before you enter, but it is a real wonderful combination.

Well done!

[roymattblack]

Absolutely lovely.

I really like the interior colour scheme.

Roy.

[larchiefeng]

Thank you all for your nice comments!.

Sharkey, I used a lot of different Alclad paints and others on the engine. I think the valve cover was a polished aluminum, the head was a gun metal, block is black, super charger is air frame aluminum, the exhaust manifold is burnt metal, the intake manifold is a polished aluminum and the water outlet is copper with brass and so on.

Rich, yes the chrome on the door is solder.

The interior was originally going to be red which, as it turns out would have been a copy of the same Mercedes 540K True Roadster that, David Cox and Marvin at MMC had already done. When, I was having conversations with David, I told him that I had decided to change the interior color to this beautiful cream colored leather that I had picked up from Roy a couple of months prior. He thanked me for not doing a copy of their work. I had, by that time, already wanted to do my own version of this car and for it to be a one of a kind.

It seems like I'm all of a sudden making a lot of progress but, once I got over the hump of doing the interior I felt like it was all downhill from there. I also had a few things already done and I knew that I had purposely left a few things undone in case I need to go back remove something in order to get at something else. So, now there is just some buttoning up to do and lots of little finish details.

First off, I did manage to get the extra piece of carpet in along the lower kick panels and extending back under the door opening. I did make a couple of door sill plates but, after looking at them, they looked awful so, more to come on those. Here is the picture of the kick panel and I still need to add the door leather above it and finish off a section at the dash on the side panel to carry the colors through. Got the shift lever knob and hand brake handle painted too.

Next up is the MMC exhaust pipe upgrade off the manifold with nicer flexible pipes. Here is the kit and the two kit manifold parts that need to basically be cut in half and drilled out etc.

Lots of cutting and drilling. Cut the fittings in half for the chrome fittings to go on.

Once it's cut in half it's sanded flat and the the molded heads on the other side are cut off and the holes are drilled out so the bolts and nuts can go on to hole the new chrome piece in place

The last thing was to cut the back part a little shorter so it sits back in on the manifold. I know it looks a little messy but most of this won't be seen.

Not quite done but, you get the idea of where this is going. And a better idea of the bluing on the head pipe.

Next up, I finished off installing the upper radiator hoses and added the new grille mesh PE screen over the radiator and the real silver Mercedes Tri-star radiator cap. Here are pictures of all that and other areas around it all that are now completed.

Last for today is the wiring. I received both new blocks but the one that the bridge strips fit on made the whole thing too wide under the seat and there would have been no room for the battery box. So, I went with the one that is a built in bridge connection to all the terminals on each side of the block for positive and negative. So here we are checking the fit and placement of each and with the lights connected to the block to test the terminal to be sure it all works before I mount everything.

One thing to note here, if you're paying attention. I've had the body off and on the frame 20 times or more just in the last 4-5 days to check and fit and add things. If it weren't for the little 2mm thread rod studs that, I adapted from Codger, many months ago this, would not have been possible or else I would have have body mounting holes twice as big and nothing would stay together on final assembly. So, sometimes you have to make changes and add things in order to make doing things easier. That is the one thing that has made this build more possible.

[Codger]

A wonderful primer on going from place to place around the model to finalize things. And beautiful work at that.

Nice detailing on the exhaust flanges and resizing them. The new bolts are spiffy. That begs the question, how was it cutting MM's flexible corrugated pipe? Did you insert a stiffener before sawing? They look fragile.

And PLEASE, remove that beautiful silver Benz cap up front, while construction continues. I'd be so afraid to ding that with a shirt sleeve (I get snagged on things all the time like that) or tool or flipping the works over or removing the body dozens of times.... phew, I'm getting palpitations!

The absolute last thing going on my Roller is The Flying Lady, who currently sleeps in her own little foam-lined box...

[Mpfiend]

Hi Wayne,

This is really coming to life now, the interior looks fantastic.

How did you fix the photo etch to the Pocher radiator surround?

Best Regards

Keith

[larchiefeng]

Thanks Mr. C and Keith. The flexible pipe is very stiff and was pretty hard to cut. I put it in the vise and used the Dremel with a diamond cut off disc and it still took a while so, no it's definitely not fragile. I'm going to have to pull the head pipe back off and reduce the diameter of the two attachment points and also add a section of rod inside the plastic. The flex pipe also requires some rod inside the flex pipe to hold the final shape. I really need to install the body and right fender and right side of the hood so I can position the small section of hood that the pipes center on so, I can make the exact bends. I'm thinking that this final assembly of the pipes will have to wait but, in the meantime I'll get everything ready and wait for the final assembly.

On the Tri-star radiator cap; I have two. One is the cheaper cap from MMC and the other is the solid silver cap from MMC. The one on there now is the silver cap and I had to use it in order to get the radiator and grille shell on and in place. The other cap didn't want to screw on so I had to use the one that works to finish the assembly. I'm well aware of the danger of leaving it on. It will be coming off in a bit.

The PE grille cover also came from MMC and it comes flat and just bends in the middle to the shape of the radiator. There are a number of little tabs around the perimeter that are the same depth of the edge of the radiator plastic. So, you just bend the tabs 90 degrees and position the screen over the radiator and super glue each tab on. When it was dry I had to play around with the whole thing to get it centered. This is why I had to put the cap on the radiator to get it right. The PE piece adds thickness and it requires some finagling.

Well, time to get busy, more later.

[Pouln]

This coming together very nicely now, Wayne.

It shows that you are going downhill now (but watch out for that last turn at the bottom of the hill).

The radiator grill really looks fantastic as does your engine.

[rjfk2002]

A diamond cut off disk??? Wow that flex exhaust pipe is serious. Did the PE grille replace a kit part or is it additional?

[larchiefeng]

I may have hit the curve at the bottom of the hill today as far as the flexible pipes are concerned. I spent most of the day trying to get one shaped to fit the rear pipe from the manifold to the rear fitting on the head pipe. I took it off and thinned it down and got it to fit well and then it broke off. So I drilled into it and inserted a piece of the rod that is supposed to go inside the flex pipe and there's no way that the flex pipe is going make the bends necessary to connect on either end. The flex pipe is way too stiff and the rod is also too stiff. I'm going to have to rethink the pipes and tomorrow I'm going to have to put the fender on the right side to see how much of bend is really needed and if there's something I'm missing here.

Yeah, the pipe is some serious stuff. The PE grille piece is after market. I did get the e-brake cable done and the wires shortened and a couple soldered. I can't go any further until the exhaust pipe issue is settled because the floor needs to be installed and the head pipe has to be in place for that to happen. One thing leads to another. I did take a few pictures but I'll wait until tomorrow to post with tomorrow's work. I had to stop to think about the problem before I broke something major.

[larchiefeng]

As I mentioned on my other build, I've been gathering parts and have been busy on life things. So, tomorrow I'll be sitting back down and working out a different approach to the power system and wiring to see how it's going to work. If it works it should reduce the footprint of power distribution area and as I mentioned on the TR thread I found super small, head of a pin size LED's, which now allow me to do more lighting on the car. Since I've had so many issues with some of the MMC parts I've decided to go back to a couple of other kit parts, namely the front fender marker lights so, I can light those up too. I have a lot of new smaller connectors and three different micro size LED's and printed circuit boards and other assorted parts and supplies that will get the job done with a minimum footprint. So, pictures and more tomorrow.

[sharknose156]

Just caught up, as i have been also busy with 'life things' as you say.

Absolutely great stuff here. The PE grill looks in perfect position.

Am sure you will find the right solution for the pipes.

Pin size LED's? which supplier please ?

Your build and Codger's really make me want to build a Pocher.

Perhaps the forthcoming 300 SL...but ...i know it is not an old Pocher kit....

The Tristar looks great ! does it have a small antitheft / anti breaking springflex just like the real one ?

thank you for your well written explanations and great pictures, can't wait for more.

Sam