Whether for vehicles long out of production or for modern ones, your best source for Mercedes-Benz parts is Mercedes-Benz.

Sheetmetal

We always try to choose items in this section, Parts News, to reflect our main themes in the rest of the issue.  But when it comes to parts for classic cars in a restoration project, maybe we should call them “Parts Olds,” not “Parts News.”  Nonetheless, we aim for useful parts information, be it current or antique.

Unlike domestic carmakers, Europeans including Mercedes-Benz built essentially the same model for some years at a stretch back in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Whatever consequences that had for sales and styling, it means certain parts are common for some cars for longer than you’d think.  The same fender might fit cars built for eight or ten years.  The same hoods and doors as well.

One thing those carbulders in Untertuerkheim learned was this: Don’t throw away perfectly good tools just because they’re old.  The factory either has or can make again an amazing variety of parts for cars going back to the late 1940’s.  They not mass-producing SL quarter panels, of course, so they’re not as inexpensive as they were during the Eisenhower administration.  But they are available, in a variety that can amaze you.

Diesel Injection Pumps

Some components last a very long time, and the components of Diesel engines figure large among them.  Most of the highest-mileage Mercedes-Benz cars are Diesels.  Nonetheless, eventually everything can wear out.  Even more likely, components like injection pumps and injectors themselves can sustain damage caused by either the wrong fuel or fuel contaminated with water or grit.  New or refurbished injection pumps are available to solve that problem, but make sure to find what went wrong with the original and make sure you eliminate that as well.

When you do replace an injection pump, make sure you set the injection timing with the greatest precision you can manage, following the instructions for that pump in that vehicle to the letter.  The timing adjustment you make on an injection pump will probably stay where it is for the remainder of the life of the vehicle.  When you consider the performance, emissions and fuel economy of mistakenly setting that timing even a degree wrong, here is a place to do exactly what the engineers have determined from their extensive tests.