[manishalive]

Hi Prithvi,

I think you were looking for white wall tyres for your car?? I found this interesting topic on mbzponton.org. Hope it is of some use.

Mercedes-Benz Pontons (1953-1962) / White Wall Tire Paint for Diagonal (Cross-Ply) Tires © www.mbzponton.org

[mbz180]

Originally Posted by manishalive

Hi Prithvi,

I think you were looking for white wall tyres for your car?? I found this interesting topic on mbzponton.org. Hope it is of some use.

Mercedes-Benz Pontons (1953-1962) / White Wall Tire Paint for Diagonal (Cross-Ply) Tires © www.mbzponton.org

Hi Manish,

I saw that a number of years ago my friend, but I am still not convinced about how it will look. But thank you for remembering about my car's tires.

Lets see, as I had said earlier, inserts will have to do for a while. Right now, my finances have taken a big hit with the webasto roof and it's crating for shipment (which cost almost as much as the roof). I still have to shell out some more money for the freight and that's not going to be cheap either, after all the damn thing weighs 375 pounds.

[inderpalgill]

Originally Posted by mbz180

Hi Manish,

I saw that a number of years ago my friend, but I am still not convinced about how it will look. But thank you for remembering about my car's tires.

Lets see, as I had said earlier, inserts will have to do for a while. Right now, my finances have taken a big hit with the webasto roof and it's crating for shipment (which cost almost as much as the roof). I still have to shell out some more money for the freight and that's not going to be cheap either, after all the damn thing weighs 375 pounds.

i can very well understand how hard is it to hold ,wait and watch for the the time to come the day you will get your webasto roof, pls elaborate is it the hard roof, or the inner liner or what exactly,making it so bulky and heavy, i some times wonder and talk to myself that what iam doing , is it a money waste,as i like many or almost all here,are we addicted to our passion ,or whats going on, pls dont mind ,i think iam unable to descibe what i mean to say, i mean what we are doing is it normal, when i will turn 60( if i reached 60 by gods grace) will i repent on what i kept on doing my whole life ,i cud have saved money or invested it in a better way, or will i be happy for what i did and will be happy with the fruit.i think you guys can understand me better at least better than some normal people ha ha

[the mole]

Originally Posted by mbz180

Hi Manish,

I saw that a number of years ago my friend, but I am still not convinced about how it will look. But thank you for remembering about my car's tires.

Lets see, as I had said earlier, inserts will have to do for a while. Right now, my finances have taken a big hit with the webasto roof and it's crating for shipment (which cost almost as much as the roof). I still have to shell out some more money for the freight and that's not going to be cheap either, after all the damn thing weighs 375 pounds.

Prithvi the best way is DHL jumbo box

[mbz180]

Originally Posted by inderpalgill

i can very well understand how hard is it to hold ,wait and watch for the the time to come the day you will get your webasto roof, pls elaborate is it the hard roof, or the inner liner or what exactly,making it so bulky and heavy.

Inderpallji,

If you see a few pages back I had made a post that I had bought a new webasto roof, something that comes up very rarely in the market, and that was only the liner which came to a substantial sum of money for me. However, the seller did not agree with me on a number of things, and the deal turned sour, so we both decided to cancel the sale (E-Bay).

This roof, though old and the liner is totally useless and tattered, comes with the pillars upwards, with the sheet metal and the extra bracing that came along with factory webasto fitted Pontons. The liner part in not an issue, Mr. Sircar is more than capable of making a period new liner, and in all other respects, from the extra bracing, to the steel bows, to the aluminium rails and front wooden bow, it is complete. But because of the pillars, the entire thing is bulky and heavy.

However, the way both Mr. Sircar and I see it, since this is a complete metal piece, all we need to do is cut and paste. Of course my car's pillars won't be cut, but just the right amount will be cut from my car, and the webasto frame will be welded on. If you see the metal panels above the windows in the pics, you will see an inner metal sheet, which came on all pontons, and I always wondered why it was there, since it didn't seem to serve any purpose. Now I know, it was for the cars with factory webastos or those with retrofitted webastos.

Now the seller is a member of the International Ponton Owners Group (IPOG) of which both Amol and I are members. This guy is a respected specialist classic Mercedes restorer, and has restored everything from 500 and 540K's to 300SL Gullwings and roadsters. I had actually suggested to him if he can cut out around 4 inches of sheet metal from the actual webasto canvas, so that it will be lighter. But he insisted that I take it from the pillars upwards, since these roofs had extra metal to support the whole thing.

At first I did not understand, but when he sent me the pics, it was clear. So I decided to go ahead with it. The pics below will illustrate.

Amol, is this DHL Jumbo box you mention by air or ship?

Regards
Prithvi

[manishalive]

Prithvi,

One thing I must say your dedication and perfection is mind blowing. When I met you you showed me reference pictures of Original routing for Wiring and then the MB rubber bush, the switch. And now this roof .

The attention to detail is .

[mbz180]

Hello all,

The recent semi-cyclonic weather in Calcutta over the last couple of days nearly ended my Saturday afternoon ritual of seeingmy car in the workshop, but for that brief period, the weather Gods turned kind. So I did eventually spend a good 3 hours with my car

Am very glad at the pace of the work and the fact that it has been put back in the shed before the sudden rains. In fact, I now have to tell Mr. Sircar to take it easy on the pace due to the time it will take for the roof to come in!

As the pics will show, the basic wiring harness for the front is more or less done, as per the colour coding of wires in the MB workshop manual. Trust me, for the 1950s, Mercedes wiring, even for a bottom feeder car like mine, was pretty complicated.

Fenders and doors were fitted, and the mechanics were busy aligning all these. Something that gladdened me was the lovely looking new aluminium clips that the restorer has bought for my car's inner fenders, to which the outer fenders will be bolted onto. In the pics you can't see them, because they were taken off by the time I started clicking, as the mounting holes had to be increased in size on one side, as the fender was not aligning the way it should.

One of the mechanics, who had spent months on the underside of the car and by now obviously quite attached to the car himself, came up to me and told me 'Your car has literally been rescued from dying'.

With that happy thought in my mind, I left the workshop.

Best Regards
Prithvi

[the mole]

Prithvi the only cost effective way of going ahead with the importing of this is by dismantling the sunroof completely. If you want to import it as is there is no option but to book space in a container and have it sent as freight. Bear in mind this will take at least three months to reach you from the USA. You don't want to miss your statesman dates now do you?

Good progress, put up the wiring diagram for the car for all to see and for record.

[ariesonu]

Originally Posted by mbz180

Inderpallji,


Now the seller is a member of the International Ponton Owners Group (IPOG) of which both Amol and I are members. This guy is a respected specialist classic Mercedes restorer, and has restored everything from 500 and 540K's to 300SL Gullwings and roadsters. I had actually suggested to him if he can cut out around 4 inches of sheet metal from the actual webasto canvas, so that it will be lighter. But he insisted that I take it from the pillars upwards, since these roofs had extra metal to support the whole thing.

At first I did not understand, but when he sent me the pics, it was clear. So I decided to go ahead with it. The pics below will illustrate.

Amol, is this DHL Jumbo box you mention by air or ship?

Regards
Prithvi

Hi Prithvi,

Since it weighs close to 170 KG, I suggest you ask seller to send it via sea route. There are numerous clearing & forwading agents worldwide, who can book your consignment on LCL (Less Container Load) basis, wherein agent will book an entire container for particluar destination, say Kolkata & your consignment will be part of other consignments, coming to Kolkata, in that container. You can save huge amounts of money on logistics. This may take about 20-25 days OR more to arrive, for I presume that you are in no immediate hurry to have it over.
LCL is also available via air but I'm not much aware of the fares/facts.

Raab Rakha.

[mbz180]

Originally Posted by the mole

Prithvi the only cost effective way of going ahead with the importing of this is by dismantling the sunroof completely. If you want to import it as is there is no option but to book space in a container and have it sent as freight. Bear in mind this will take at least three months to reach you from the USA. You don't want to miss your statesman dates now do you?

Good progress, put up the wiring diagram for the car for all to see and for record.

Hi Amol,

Yes I have already chosen sea route, because the entire roof is coming as is. It has already been packed and crated for ocean freight. The shipper has said 45 days from origin to destination.

@ Ariesonu, thanks for the valuable advise. Will do as you say.


Regards
Prithvi

[adkol]

Originally Posted by mbz180

Hi Amol,

Yes I have already chosen sea route, because the entire roof is coming as is. It has already been packed and crated for ocean freight. The shipper has said 45 days from origin to destination.

@ Ariesonu, thanks for the valuable advise. Will do as you say.


Regards
Prithvi

Prithvi, you must find out what is the best method to weld this roof on to your car. Am sure someone may give you an insight. Ordinary welding will not do. Best of luck.

[mbz180]

A lot of work has been done on my car, after my last update, but I haven't posted anything since most of the work is to do with issues of panel alignment. Am happy to say that when I went 2 weeks back, most of the panel gaps had been set straight, with only a few minor areas remaining, which will be addressed after the webasto roof is fitted.

Regarding the roof, I must say that I had no idea that ocean shipping will be this fast; the roof sailed from New Jersey on the 27th of July, and it's on it's way after being trans-shipped from Colombo, and I am told that it will arrive in Kolkata by the end of this month!

One area where we hit a stumbling block was the headlamp inner buckets. Mine were cut a long time back and then very sadly thrown away, and we never found them again.

My car's restorer, Rahul Sircar, very kindly set out to scout for other forlorn Pontons in the city, with original buckets. The first one we saw, was an early side valve engined 180, but it was resting in a very dark and damp garage, and bringing it out was not possible since the tyres were shot. It looked like there would be a lot of nasty insects inside the shed too!

The second car he located, was a 190B, the last series in the Ponton line up. This was another forlorn car, and looked like it was almost beyond restoration, since every part of sheet metal had corroded badly. However, this car was in the open, and 3 weeks back, Mr. Sircar took permission from the owner to take measurements of the headlamp buckets, which were thankfully still original on this car.

2 tin smiths from the workshop, as well as 2 mechanics arrived with Mr. Sircar at the spot, where I met up with them. The curvature of the bucket I thought would be a challenge to replicate, but the tin smiths are champs, and after cutting several pieces of chart paper as templates, exactly in the shape of the bucket and then stapling them together, the shape was replicated. A few days later, I was shown the final, beaten buckets, and frankly, I was amazed at the accuracy of the replica.

A few pics of the 190B and it's engine bay (which may prove to be useful for making the metal shroud behind the engine), as well as shots of the rear of the bucket showing a fixed metal tube for the wiring to the headlamp, and the original clips for the trunk wiring harness are shown. Also the replica buckets for my car. Of course they will look better once it has been primered and made even with putty later.

Best Regards
Prithvi

[anjan_c2007]

Good to read about your Ponton Prithvi after sometime. The headlight bucket problem and the way it was fabricated may be one of the many, many hurdles that you and the Bumpu Sircar garage must be facing.
The number of your car WBB **** shows that it was registered sometime around 1963-64.Guess it had another registration number earlier!
Lets hope the work will sail on and the result will turn out to be an excellent work of restoration.

[Stanher]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

The number of your car WBB **** shows that it was registered sometime around 1963-64.Guess it had another registration number earlier!

Is that his car or the other one that he mentioned (for measuring the headlamp buckets)?

The second car he located, was a 190B, the last series in the Ponton line up. This was another forlorn car, and looked like it was almost beyond restoration, since every part of sheet metal had corroded badly.

A few pics of the 190B and it's engine bay

[mbz180]

Good to read about your Ponton Prithvi after sometime. The headlight bucket problem and the way it was fabricated may be one of the many, many hurdles that you and the Bumpu Sircar garage must be facing.
The number of your car WBB **** shows that it was registered sometime around 1963-64.Guess it had another registration number earlier!
Lets hope the work will sail on and the result will turn out to be an excellent work of restoration.

Originally Posted by Stanher

Is that his car or the other one that he mentioned (for measuring the headlamp buckets)?

Anjan Sir,

Stanher is right, WBB **** is not my car (my car is not as bad as that anymore). It's the car that we took measurements from for my car. As far as the number goes, WBB **** must have been it's first registration in 1963 in Calcutta atleast, since it was in all likelihood manufactured in 1961 or early 1962. My car, from 1958 is WBA 8385, first registered in 1961 in Calcutta when it came from the Gulf.

Regards
Prithvi