Going Together – Preparing Parts and Fitting the Gearbox for the Engine of the 1969 Mercedes 280SL Pagoda

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By Craig Ranson

The 1969 Mercedes 280SL Pagoda might just be one of the most beautiful cars we’ve had in the Bridge Classic Cars workshop at our Suffolk HQ. But, we want to hear it run and drive.

So, our in-house restoration technician Jon has been working on getting all the parts ready for the car and fitting up the automatic gearbox.

Jon has carefully inspected and refinished most of the reusable metal hoses for the 280SL so that each individual piece looks as good as the day it was new. He also dismantled many of the air and oil boxes/cans so they could be taken into our in-house paint shop and refinished.

Once all the pieces were back on Jon’s bench, he began to reassemble them ready for the engine installation into the car. But before then, a big piece of the puzzle had to be put in.

Jon and Paul prepped the engine to be mated to its automatic gearbox. This has been rebuilt and refinished so it looks as good as the newly built engine. Once the technicians had got the gearbox secured to the back of the engine block with all the internals correctly fitted up and spaced, Jon then began to test fit the various pipes and wires that go to and from the gearbox to make sure everything was present and correct before the next phase begins…

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