About 20 years ago, at a family reunion, I told some of my cousins that, when I was a teenager, our Uncle John had given me 1959 Mercedes Benz 190. I was in Oakland High School and didn’t even have my driver’s license. They gasped.
That sounds like an extravagant gift from a rich uncle. The reality was that it was from a generous uncle – one Christmas, he literally gave me the shirt off his back when I told him that I liked his Hawaiian shirt. But the car wasn’t running and it was slightly beat-up. It had a few dents, it was missing some rocker panel trim, it was missing a section of the rear bumper and mainly, the car wasn’t drivable. Uncle John thought that there was something wrong with the transmission.
I went to European Motors, then the Mercedes Benz dealership in Oakland, to buy an interior lightbulb. On the counter of the parts department, I saw the first edition of a hardcover book, Glenn’s Mercedes-Benz Repair & Tune-Up Guide. When I flipped through it, I saw photos of a transmission being rebuilt and thought, “I can do that.” That was my introduction to my version wrenching in California in the 1960’s.
Beyond the book, my main source of help was my next door neighbor, Mr Algie. Somehow, we determined that there wasn’t a problem with the transmission. The drive shaft flex joint had failed and the drive shaft was hitting the drive shaft tunnel. He also thought that the low oil pressure and the engine knock was due to worn bearings and rings. The engine needed rebuilding. My solution up to that point was to pour in a can of STP.
I was amazed when Mr Algie showed me how to use Plastigauge, to measure bearing clearances. I learned what scored bearings looked like. And I realized why STP quieted the bearing knock. He also loaned me a lot of the tools that I needed to do the engine rebuild.
Eugene also helped me. My parents bought us matching (white!) Ben Davis coveralls (affiliate link) that we wore when we worked on the car.
From what I can remember from working on the car 57 years ago, an interesting design of the 1959 Mercedes Benz 190 was that the engine was mounted on a subframe. After disconnecting the engine plumbing, electrics and mechanicals, there were three big bolts holding the subframe to the rest of the car. After removing those bolts, you could raise the car up and roll out the subframe on the front tires, and then the engine was out – on sort of a rolling work stand.
The problem was how to get the car high enough to roll out the subframe. Uncle John had made two ramps by crisscrossing 2x4s. They were a little less than a 18 inches high. Somehow, Eugene and I used ropes and two bumper jacks on the wooden stands to raise the car high enough to get the subframe out. I can not imagine why I was doing this, but after the subframe was rolled out, I was standing inside the engine compartment and the car fell off the jacks. Miraculously, I was untouched. There could not have been a more dangerous operation.
I was lucky that I was able to have the car to drive to Oakland High School. After the hood ornament was stolen, I made an alarm that activated the car’s horn when someone moved the hood ornament. Of course there were times after school when I’d come back to my car and the horn was honking.
I even drove it to go skiing in the Sierras – probably to Sugar Bowl – a 6,883 ft (2,098 m) climb. I wasn’t particularly mindful of how powerful the engine was, but I remember on one trip, it was so slow going up a hill we stopped so I could try something. I thought that by rotating the distributor to change the ignition timing we’d get more power.
(Some specs of the 1959 Mercedes Benz 190 (W121) have it at a curb weight of 1200 kg / 2646 lb and 84 HP)
When it was time to move on to another car, I said good-bye to the 190. I wanted something that was silver and had a 5 speed transmission. In 1970, there weren’t many affordable cars that fit that latter description. I got lucky and found a used 1967 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT Veloce (‘step nose’ ). It’s another one of the cars that I wish I had today.
