# 190e saved from the scrappy



## DuckOutOfHell (Dec 21, 2014)

Hello all,

a newbie here, long time lurker first time poster. Hopefully this should make for some interesting viewing/reading during the christmas break,

Would also like to thank the site and regular contributors, as all my knowledge gained about various products and on detailing is taken from here.

Enjoy :thumb:

Car
1993 190e LE - Brilliant Silver (was…)

History
The car is owned by my parents, but they wanted to get rid of it after getting a replacement. Having grown up and my parents owning quite a few of them, I did not want to see this one going to a scrap yard as I really do like this generation of Mercedes Benz, It's no Cosworth but that doesn't matter to me… The car was stored on a driveway for 2years + and has been in the family for over 6 years. It was SORND and left on a driveway collecting dirt, algae, a few nice new scratches…general muck as well as not having been washed more than twice a year and was begging for some love.

We always had the plan of putting it back on the road and cruising/wafting/barging along the road with it and summer of 2013 was the perfect time for us to do it.

In regards to what was done to the car mechanically, the cylinder head was reworked and HG changed a few thousand miles ago. During the detail new hoses, timing chain/tensioner/belt, radiator, ignition components, brake discs/pads and tyres on all corners to get it ready for MOT.

The detail
I do not have many during pictures, which I know will be annoying for you all, but I do like to see a very dirty car becoming clean which is what you can see… please bare in mind I had no intention of getting it 100% perfect, I could only wish for that. You will see things that have been missed or could be improved or even replaced but given the products and time I had this is the best that I could do.

You will notice throughout the narrative I switch from we/us/I because me and my brother were involved in this detail.

In regards to what was done to it, I will bullet point below as it was lengthy to say the least:

•	snow foamed with Valet pro PH Neutral snow foam, a heavy dilution
•	washed 3 times with CG CW&G, dirt just kept coming off and that was repeated until happy with what came off
•	Intricate areas cleaned with BH Surfex HD and detailing brushes
•	whole car iron x'd
•	Clayed with Bilt Hamber Regular clay, water as lubricant
•	Wheels were cleaned at the same time with CG CW&G, however these had to be removed numerous times as stubborn brake dust was present, and they were also clayed to assist with removal of tough spots, Megs Hot Wheels/Surfex HD/iron x gel/iron x spray/AG SRP used to assist. 
•	Sonus (SFX1 and SXF3) 2 step polishing compound, with "Ultimate German" applicator, and Lake Country Orange Hex Pads used during the process (Hand Pads…)
•	After removing as much oxidisation as possible with the above, AG SRP was used, applied 4 times in order to enhance appearance….. and several layers of AG EGP……
•	Windows polished with AG Glass polish 
•	Interior vacuumed, AG Interior Shampoo used, Surfex HD on dashboard and CG Fabric Clean on carpets etc
•	Boot carpet scrubbed with CG Fabric Clean, jet washed with pressure washer

and various other things I probably forgot to mention.

the detail was done over a month at the weekends/time off work.



The car in question, loaded up and ready to come over to its new home..



Notice the rust trail down the bootlid, this is from the spoiler where it is screwed onto the boot. I believe 16v engines had this as standard don't call me on that though… this is a 1.8 8V so someone installed it at some point.



Car unloaded, notice how flat the paint is, quite a lot of dirt on there, the wheels were very bad and required multiple hits. Also had fun taking one of them off as you will find out soon..



CG CW&G highly concentrated, the car was snow foamed before this with Valet Pro PH Neutral Snow foam in an effort to loosen up the dirt, however I didn't manage to get a picture unfortunately, too much was going on at once!

It took 3 washes to get all the dirt off; a Halfrauds noodle Microfiber Wash mitt was used along with the 2bm.

The next stage involved spraying Iron x all over the car, removing any fallout on the car; the wheels were also done which you can see below. We also took the wheels off and hit them multiple times with Irox X Gel which I found to work great; it clinged onto the surface and seemed to last ages rather than turn brown within a few minutes as the spray does. We also clayed the wheels to get rid of any leftover spots.











some iron x gel sitting on a vertical surface



This is the wheel after, its not perfect but great for your average joe like me!

This is when OCD really kicked in and we started removing the wheels and bringing them inside the house…



again not perfect, but a vast improvement imho



Rough idea of what we were working on, this was the spare wheel so not as bad…



a picture of it back on the car (or one of the wheels can't remember which one)



One of the wheels decided to make life hard for us….

out came the hammer and socket….



Please DO NOT steal other peoples wheels, its not a nice thing to do.



Success!

So after doing the wheels, we moved onto using the Sonus 2 step process (SXF1 and SXF3 - Hand Polish Bundle)


All taped up, this is after completing the 2 step process, sorry for the lack of during pictures. It really is hard to take pictures when theres lots to do! Huge thank you to those who do manage to make a take loads of pictures

In regards to the Sonus products used, I would highly recommend them to anyone who wants to bring life back to oxidised paint. The following pictures should show why.

During the life of the car, someone must have been using a brillo pad or a brush to wash it… and the car was covered in these scratches, some of them still remain. The paint was also very flat with not much shine at all.



The picture below shows the bonnet after 2-3 passes with SFX1 and the Lake Country Orange Hex hand pad



The picture below is after 4 hits of SXF3 with the Lake Country Ultimate German hand pad, using the White side twice and the Red one twice

There was probably a better combo out there, but this is what I had at the time and it worked for us.



After we finished going over the car with the Sonus system, we went over the car with AG SRP applied with perfect polishing cloths a number of times to fill in swirls and enhance the appearance. We also put several layers of EGP over the car to seal it. After regular washes Dodo juice diamond white is applied as a top up.

EGP curing and windows polished with AG Glass polish



A few before/after pictures to show difference

Before





After 




Moving onto the interior, this was cleaned with AG Interior shampoo, Bilt Hamber Surfex HD and CG Fabric Cleaner for carpets/boot carpet.









The boot carpet was cleaned with CG Fabric clean and a stiff brush then rinsed with a pressure washer.





The carpet came out a lot cleaner, took less than 2 hours to dry in the summer heat

After the interior was done, there were a few other things that needed attention. The driverside wing mirror had corroded, so it was prepped and sprayed satin black.



and on the car



Another part that was in need of tlc was the airbox cover, it was heavily corroded. It was cleaned with BH Surfex HD and a detailing brush, sanded to remove all the rust, cleaned again then painted with high temp enamel spray paint.







On the car...will need to think about cleaning the engine bay soon...


Finally we have some artsy shots after going for a drive with a good friend of ours who happens to understand what detailing is and actually has an interest in it!

The following shots were around Canary Wharf taken with an Iphone…























Thanks for reading! Any comments welcome.


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## ted11 (Jul 8, 2011)

Well saved.


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## Rock Lobster (Aug 19, 2013)

Cracking work fair play, I'd love to get stuck into a project like this.


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## dandam (Apr 10, 2011)

Lovely, great work, would be tempted with a wheel refurb though if you get the chance


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## neilb62 (Jul 30, 2007)

Spot-on mate, well done... :thumb:


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## Jag 63 (Nov 21, 2014)

Looks great a good job done.


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## lowejackson (Feb 23, 2006)

Nice work :thumb:

Why the sunglasses at night time?


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## andystevens (Dec 12, 2011)

Looks great. Be interested to know more about the Sonus stuff & how good & or ease of use it is please.


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## Naddy37 (Oct 27, 2005)

Nice turnaround. That number plate says it all...


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## ColinG (Jan 20, 2013)

Very nice turnaround.


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## James Bagguley (Jul 13, 2013)

Night and day difference, great work :thumb:


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## s29nta (Mar 9, 2013)

really enjoyed looking through that, well done:thumb:


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## dubb (Aug 27, 2009)

Superb, nice save lad!


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## Tuddie (Aug 14, 2010)

Nice one!! Looking good now.


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## DuckOutOfHell (Dec 21, 2014)

andystevens said:


> Looks great. Be interested to know more about the Sonus stuff & how good & or ease of use it is please.


Hi there, 
The Sonus products were generally easy to use. A hand pad called the Sonus SFX Pro Applicator was included, this has a Yellow side which is hard and used for the cutting and final finish polish. There is also a black side which is a lot softer, I imagine it would be used for waxing, but I also applied SFX3 using this side.

I did purchase a few Lake Country Orange Hand Pads, as I wanted another hand pad that offered more cut, this seemed to be the solution after some research and did make a difference during the polishing stage. If anyone does know of a hand pad offering more cut please feel free to mention! Also purchased the ultimate German hand pads as spares which from research are the same/similar to the Sonus one provided.

SFX1 which is the one that offers the cut is quite gritty and you can feel that when you put it in your hands. When applying it, the polish breaks down as you use it and turns clear, and the residue disappears from the paint, this is the prompt that you should apply more or move on. I would have to say if you are doing it by hand, you can only break the polish down so much, not as much as a DA would, this caused the orange hex hand pad to clog up when 3/4 of the car was done using SFX1. Luckily we had an extra pad so we used that which made it easier, as a clogged up pad made it hard to tell when all the polish had broken down or was close to breaking down.

SFX1 is definitely a possible way to remove defects by hand, and made a huge difference. You could see the finish coming back to life and a majority of the scratches disappearing. You could also see that it did need to be refined which is where SFX3 comes in. It is an involving process but you do get spurred on when you see how much of a difference it is making.

In regards to SFX3 which is the final finish you can also feel that there is some cut in there but that is in order to achieve the lustre. This was very easy to apply, in the same way as SFX1, apply to the hand pad (applied to the hard side and soft side) and polish away until the residue disappears on the paint or turns clear. I did find that again after 3/4 of the car was done, the pad was becoming clogged as i could only exert so much energy into buffing, which stopped some of the polish breaking down properly; this was fixed by continuing with a fresh hand pad.

Overall i was really pleased with the outcome, it is labour intensive and i will be looking into machine polishing soon as the results would only be better.

As mentioned if you do try these products, it would be a good idea to stock up on a few extra hand pads in case pads become clogged or you drop them on the floor. I did try and clean them with water during polishing, but this was making it hard to tell when the polish had broken down.

Hope this answers your question

Thanks


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## DuckOutOfHell (Dec 21, 2014)

dandam said:


> Lovely, great work, would be tempted with a wheel refurb though if you get the chance


Hi there,

i was tempted to do that! currently looking at the idea of putting a set of R129 SL alloys on there, they are the exact same style but 16inch rather than 15inch. This allows you to put a lower profile tyre on but fill the arches a bit more.

thanks


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## DuckOutOfHell (Dec 21, 2014)

lowejackson said:


> Nice work :thumb:
> 
> Why the sunglasses at night time?


hi,

i think that was to do with the lighting, no sunglasses were used at night!

thanks for viewing!


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## DuckOutOfHell (Dec 21, 2014)

neilos said:


> Nice turnaround. That number plate says it all...


hi!

i was waiting for someone to say that lol

Thanks for viewing!


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## ocdetailer (Apr 9, 2014)

Awesome transformation, very nice pics at the end too


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

Congratulations on a job well done! :thumb:

You refer to "we" in your report - who was Santa's little helper?


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## acprc (Jun 14, 2009)

Very good work she looks great again. As has been said a nice wheel refurb would set it off lovely but I wouldn't leave that rust under the spoiler for much longer.


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## Titanium Htail (Mar 24, 2012)

Very nice result from a lifetime of grime,great work.

John Tht.


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## Demetrios72 (Jun 27, 2011)

Great turnaround :thumb:


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## MadOnVaux! (Jun 2, 2008)

Excellent work on a very neglected 190


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## Bill58 (Jul 5, 2010)

That's a great result.


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## streaky (Dec 2, 2006)

That a great effort considering you did it all by hand.


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## waxtrucker (Mar 21, 2014)

Good results, well done


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2014)

Well done...excellent job :thumb:
Show me work like this rather than the "professionals...we just charged a footballer £4k to polish his new car" every time.


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## goRt (Aug 26, 2013)

Excellent work, the step father in law (is that really a thing) bought one last night to complement his existing 254k all original one, the 'new' one having only 100k on the clock, but he'll sort that.
He prefers to keep them in the pre detailed state, I prefer to look away!


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## bazz (May 15, 2007)

wow what a great job fella and just goes to show what a good bit of tlc can make to a neglected car.
liking the end of the number plate


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## james_death (Aug 9, 2010)

Great save... nice job...:thumb:

Double yellows tsk tsk...:lol: Now canary wharf was a good call with camera phone as if you had a big camera set up they would probably be on you like a ton of bricks.


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## Buck (Jan 16, 2008)

OMG says it all. Excellent work and a classic looking car. :thumb:


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## Cookies (Dec 10, 2008)

I love those and it looks like you've done a fantastic job saving that from the scrap yard. 

Well done.

Cooks


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## chefy (May 9, 2011)

Great save - especially by hand :thumb: it looks in really good nick, body looks solid - mind you, these old Mercs were made from girders :lol:

I've had two 190 E's first one (about 14 years ago) was a silver 1.8 same as yours - although it was a manual, and not the LE, had it for 3 and a bit years, second one was a 2.0 auto in Smoke Silver, only kept it for about 18 months, both were K reg and both were immaculate, hankering after a 190 Cosworth now !!

What's the mileage on yours ?


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## Smithyithy (Jul 3, 2012)

Fantastic turnaround, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the the 190e's and Cosworths, and I'm not generally a Merc fan.

And as I've said before, I find these sort of restoration threads the most interesting on the forum, really good to see an old car given a second chance.

Thanks for sharing :thumb:


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## rowlf (Dec 28, 2014)

Awesome! Thumbs up mate! Awesome pics too.


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## ShivaYash (Mar 25, 2013)

Excellent! Thanks for a wonderful post.


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## Lee_M (Jan 31, 2014)

Great effort mate. Nice to see a car saved


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## 20vKarlos (Aug 8, 2009)

Brilliant stuff!


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## Kirkyworld (Jan 12, 2014)

Great work


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## hovnojede (Aug 9, 2012)

Well done, mate.


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## Chrissyp83 (Mar 12, 2014)

Simply outstanding work!


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## NelsonS (Apr 8, 2012)

Great job!


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## Lee Yoder (Sep 11, 2008)

dandam said:


> Lovely, great work, would be tempted with a wheel refurb though if you get the chance


Second that notion, will be a less expensive alternative to new and will keep it as close to original as possible.

Later,
Lee


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