Still getting a dashboard full of water when it rains, even after retaping rain gutters. Went out in the rain
to see where it was leaking - all over the place. Gaskets for poptop windows have shrunk and are
letting water in at the butt joints. Windshield & side window gaskets are letting water in.
November 7
Took the afternoon off to go hunting. Went to a junkyard at Felton that was rumoried to have foreign
cars. An old Mercedes coupe in the fornt boded well. Showed him the picture - never saw one of
them. In fact he didn't deal with European cars at all, let alone Benzes. (Maybe it was just a fullsize
picture of a MB coupe out in front.) "Who does deal with Benzes?" "Nobody." "Go to people who
work on Benzes in York - S & J, Concours Unlimited."
Went to S&J - never saw one of them. Working on Benzes since the 80s when Diehl stopped being an
MB dealer. Went to Concours - he had one! 5 cylinder, aluminum body. Must have been a 309.
He said go to Anspach's, a famous old junkyard above Harrisburg. I thought they had closed, he was
sure they were still open. Ran up to Harrisburg. Anspach's no longer exists.
November 8
Took the day off to go hunting. Had heard there were once a couple in Gettysburg for tour buses.
People at tour company didn't remember one, including a guy who had been there since 1945. Found
a local retired independent VW mechanic - never saw one of them. Went to a local foreign car repair
shop - never saw one of them. Went to a junkyard - never saw one of them. Followed some bad leads.
Everybody says to go to Potomac German - a junkyeard that only does MB. Ran down to Frederick &
found Potomac German. Never saw one of them.
November 9
Wrapped the entire bus in black plastic.
November 29
The plastic kept it dry, but it wasn't possible to work on it. Decided to put it in the garage. Used the
pickup to drag it backward from its parking spot, dragged it around the garage into the driveway,
dragged it backward up to the garage door, extracting the pickup through the other door. It is
too tall to fit in the garage, so the poptop had to come off. We tried to remove the screws that
hold the rails clamping the fabric to the top, but they're brass and all siezed up. Plus we can't even see
the rail on the hinge side. Cut through the fabric all around.
The hinges were held on with brass screws and acorn nuts - all sized. Broke them off. There's no
bearing surface inside the fiberglass for the screwheads - two of them pulled through the 'glass.
Rotated the top 90 degrees and slid it to the ground. The poptop framework still is higher than the door
opening. Letting air out of the tires seemed like a hassle, and would make it harder to pull the thing.
So I put a bunch of boxes of books inside to scrunch the springs down a little, and we winched it in.