My 1981 w460 300GD STT-turbo + intercooler

[Vegard_S]

I have been reading around here for a while, so I thought it might be time to do a little presentation of my car.



It's a 1981 w460 300GD with STT turbo + intercooler. it's my third G' and I've had it for around 2 years now. And in that time it has been thru a lowcost but quite thorough restaurtion. It is used daily for getting to and from work, and every once in a while it is taken for trips of varying length both here in Norway and further down on the continent. for the last 1,5 years I have driven it around 95 000km, and have never had a serious breakdown.

Here it is featured on top of the St. Gotthard pass at aprox. 2100 MASL in Switzerland this summer.



For sleeping on longer trips I use a "Maggiolina Extreme Medium" Which I am very happy with. I have used it both in 38deg celcius and in temperatures way below the freezing point. For shorter trips or trips in really bad weather I have the posibility of laying a mattress on top off the plastic eurocases I use for storrage and it is then possible for two adults to seep inside the car.

For food storrage i have an Engel MT35 fridge/freezer. It was a quite expensive investment, but I am very happy about it and dont think I ever will go back to traveling without a fridge.

Before the restauration it looked like this:



Time had taken it's toll on it after 30 winters on salted winterroads in northern Norway way above the arctic cicle. But a geländewagen is tough to break, and after some hours of sandblasting it was already starting to look much better.



Except from an upgrade of the bodywork I also restored the turbo so the car would run just as good as I was planning for it to be looking!



After quite a lot of late nights replacing the rusted sheet metal I could finaly give it a new paint job:



After asembeling it back together it went out on it first long trip in my posession, a 6500km long trip through the south-eastern part of Europe. Here is a shot from Germany on day 2 of it's maiden voyage after the restauration:



Since that it has been on quite a few trips down to the continent but also trips around here in the Norwegian Highlands. Here are a few radom photos from my latest trips:


The Swiss Alps:



Austrian Highlands:



Feeling at home at the factory where it was made back in 1981, Magna Steyr, Graz Austria

 

[Vegard_S]

More pictures

Gavia pass, Italy 2621 masl.



The Dolomites, Northern Italy.



Beaches in Denmark.



Norwegian winter:



Norwegian winter 2:

 

[colodak]

awsome

 

[4D55 Performance]

I like what I see. Great job on the restoration.

 

[pagoda]

Excellent... Have you done any soundproofing? Any pictures of the inside?

Vow, 95.000km in a year and a half in a G is quite a lot!

 

[Vegard_S]

Thanks for Nice comments. 95 000km is indeed quite a lot, but thats the way it has to be when you have two hours daylo driving only to get too work + having the wife living in the Hungary because of School ( I live in Norway!!) does not exactly make it any better:smiley_drive:..

I did quite a lot of soundproofing of the inside before putting in the interior again after the restauration. The entire floor + torpedowall + parts of the doors where covered With asphalt plates (simmilar to the American DynaMat). The roof and some parts of the torpedowall was allso covered with 25 mm foam rubber plates. The finnished result was quite good!

I'll try to see if i can find some pictures from the process when I have a bit more spare time.

 

[Noodlesswe]

Nice looking, lovely when a G is used as a DD

 

[pagoda]

I did quite a lot of soundproofing of the inside before putting in the interior again after the restauration. The entire floor + torpedowall + parts of the doors where covered With asphalt plates (simmilar to the American DynaMat). The roof and some parts of the torpedowall was allso covered with 25 mm foam rubber plates. The finnished result was quite good!

I'll try to see if i can find some pictures from the process when I have a bit more spare time.

Please do! I am looking into options to soundproof the G, and any picture helps.....

One question on rubber foam - isn't there a danger that it would retain water, and therefore facilitate the creation of rust?

How much horsepower to you have now, with the STT turbo?

 

[Vegard_S]

Please do! I am looking into options to soundproof the G, and any picture helps.....

One question on rubber foam - isn't there a danger that it would retain water, and therefore facilitate the creation of rust?

How much horsepower to you have now, with the STT turbo?

The rubber foam have exelent isolating propperties, but does indeed absorb moisture. Therefor I have only used it in the roof and up under the Dashboard where I am sure it will stay dry. One of the moast importaint Places to isolate an old w460 or w461 is underneat the senterconsoll around the levelers for the transfercase + diff locks. Often on older cars the rubberseals surrounding the levelers are cracked and thereby leaking in a lot of sound from underneath the car. So it's a good tip to ensure that these are in excelent order. Between the steel structure of the floor and the plastic center console there is allso space enough to stuff inn some bits of isolation. I have done this on all my previous G's and i think it helps quite a lot. Allso for daily use when I normally only use 2WD high range, I use to have a wool-blanket laying over the gear leveler for the transfer case. This allso helps on the sound.

Regarding the horsepower i think it's around 140BHP With both the STT-turbo and intercooler. It doesn't transform it into a racecar in any way, but is a great upgrade from the stock om617 With only 88BHP.

I'll cheek later in the eavening if i can find photos from the isolation process.

 

[pagoda]

Thank you Vegard - that would be excellent if you had pictures..

Indeed I have had 3 Gs: a W463 300TD LWB (year 2000), a W463 320cdi LWB (year 2009) and now a w461 GD290 (year 1994) - i am obviously not seeking to have the W461 as silent as the newer W463, that would be impossible - but a bit more civilisation for the long highway transfers would be welcome..

and since you are driving yours so much on pavement and highways, i am sure i can learn from you!

Cheers, ennio

 

[Vegard_S]

Hi Ennio,

I think you are lucky who have had the opportunity of owning 2 w463's and now a w461. And from reading your forum-name I assume that you allso are the happy owner of a w113 SL?! I would very much like to have a 290GD one day, but they are quite rare here in Norway, which results in quite high prices..

I have had 3 w460's (+ a w108 280s that i still have) Here is a picture of one of the previous ones from a trip to Croatia in 2010. It's a 300GD 1986 STT turbo + intercooler (same as the white one I have now. I welded a snorkle and roofrack for it an it served me fine for around 4 years. Sadly I had to sell it when I was finishing my studies as a Mecanical Engineer.



I did a bit of sound proofing on it, this is how it looked like in the floor:



I did not cover the entire floor with asphalt plates, but only put on stripes of plates to take away some of the vibrations. The result was a great inprovement fom having nothing in the floor, but still the result in my white 1981 G was a lot better. Here is what it looked like before I started on the sound proofing (The floor is newly painted after being sandblasted and having the rusted holes welded/covered with new sheet metal).



I covered the entire floor with plates (a heating pistol is a must when doing this since it make it possible to form the plates into all kinds of funny shapes). Sadly I could nOt find a picture of the finnished result, but here's a picture that shows the process quite well:



It is not shown in the picture but I allso covered the inner wheel arch over the backwheels. I think this is of great importance if one want a good result. dont get frighten away of how much i have removed of the interior, with some training it is fully possible to disasemble and reassemble the complete interior including the dashboard in one day. Even for the unexperienced it is fully feasable in let's say a weekend.

Sorry for not having better photos here comes my best shot of the dashbord/torpedowall, here you can see the asphaltplates in the driver- and passenger footwell going all the way up toward the torpedo wall (they are maybe a bit har to spot because of the whit dust on them from the resparying of the car):



Here i covered as much as possible first with asphalt plates, then rubber foamed plates on top of this where this was possible.

I ont have photos of the roof, but here I removed the inner plastic roof-lining and then installed 4mm asphalt plates on the steel and rubber foamed 20 mm plates on the backside of the plastic linning. This is a bit of work since there is quite a lot of disassembeling that has to be done befor the roof-linning can be removed from the car. But nevertheless by great importance (especially in an old om617 powered w460) while there is a lot of sound under driving from vibrations of the roof itself.

Hope this was a bit helpfull sorry for not having as many photos rom the process as first thought, but just feel free to ask if anything is unclear and I'll do my best to answer

 

[pagoda]

Thank you very, very much...very helpful indeed.... I need to tackle this, but might just wait until spring...

Did you add carpeting at the end or you left the original gray rubber matting?

And yes, i used to have until 2 years ago a 1967 230sl w113... Now i have the GD 290 (actually a Puch), a w123 240d from 1982 and a w126 280se from 1982 as well....

If by chance you have pictures of the final product, i.e. The interior of the G today, do post them..

Cheers, Ennio

 

[BrageGundersen]

I have to say its quite a neat looking wagon you've got there Vegard. The sound proofing looks great, and makes (can make) a huge difference. Looking forward to read more!

Just began planning my expo/heavy offroad pickup build, and think I'll take the cabin to Arctic Trucks in Drammen to spray bedliner on the floor and torpedo instead of foam and asphalt. Just so it can handle the water and mud a little easier.

 

[pagoda]

One additional question - did you install the plastic internal wheel arches protection? The one standard on W463s but not present on W460 and W461...

 

[Vegard_S]

Ennio:

At the moment I still have the gray rubber matting laying on top of the floor in the luggage compartments. But I am planning to do something simmilar to what you can find in some of the newer PUR.editions and Professionals. Here they have installed
the same type of rails that are used in the flight-industry. Cheek it out here:

https://www.google.no/search?q=gelä...ial-edition-g-wagen-the-edition30%2F;1280;861

I do in fact have a set of four Lockari inner plastic wheel arches, but have mixed feelings about innstalling them. From a sound proofing point of view I'm sure it would help. The only problem I see is that salt and other types of dirt can get beetwheen the plastic and the body itself and in that way make a Dangerous rust trap that one have no control over... Therefore if I am to install them I think I will have to remove the at least once every year to inspect and to ad tectyle or simmilar bodyprotection.

Il try to snap some shots of the interior the way it is now the NeXT time I Wash the car


Brage:

Nice to hear that you like it! Allso nice to se a fellow Norwegian on this site

Bedliner from Artic Trucks sounds like a great ide, althogh maybe an expensive one?.. I have driven with my soundproofing for allmost 2 years now and I still haven't noticed any humidity inside the car. But I guess if one was to do og serious into offroading and rivercrossings, then my solution may not be the best, But for my intended use it so fare seems to have worked fine!