Turns out the new battery I bought along the way was slightly too big.   It was fouling on the bonnet and putting pressure on the hinge.   Since there was nothing wrong with the old battery, I decided to just put that one back in.    In the photo, the one on the right is the new one.    It’s a shame, because the new battery is brand new and a better spec.

The other thing I wanted to fix was the battery tray had some surface rust, and the battery hold downs were missing.   The battery hold downs may seem unimportant, but they prevent the battery shorting out on the bonnet or moving around over bumps or heavy cornering.   They were also missing on my 560SEL.

I’ve previously repaired the battery trays on both my 450SLC and 560SEL.   In both cases I used a rattle can primer and then top coat.    I wasn’t especially happy with the result on either car.   On the 450SLC, the top coat was too thick and ended up being soft.    On the 560SEL I did two thin coats, and it was better, but the trays are not uniform and it was hard to get even coverage.   I thought I would try something different this time.

As before, I started with a wire wheel attachment for my drill to remove surface rust.  I also used some brake clean to get some grease and residue off the tray.    Surprisingly, the tray in the 560SEC was better than the one in the 560SEL.    After a go with the wire brush, it actually came up reasonably well.

The bottom was even better, the only real rust around where the ‘tongue’ attaches to the main body of the tray.   I still thought there was value in doing this side regardless.

Instead of the rattle can, I decided this time to apply specific rust epoxy paint with a brush.   This would result in a worse finish, but a much better application of the paint.    Since the battery tray is really not visible with the battery installed, I thought this was a decent trade off.

I did two coats on the top and one on the bottom.   My nine year old daughter enjoyed painting the 560SEC battery tray.

I probably could have even used a product like miracle paint and had a better finish, but I didn’t have any, nor the time to drive to the supplier and get some.   After two coats, the 560SEC battery tray looked quite a lot better, but it was of course obvious the paint had been applied with a brush.

I’ll see how it looks when I remove the battery next time.    There is certainly a lot better all around coverage of the paint.

While the battery tray was out, I vacuumed all the leaves out from underneath it.   It is worth removing the battery tray every few years to remove any dirt and leaves from this part of the car.    Getting the 560SEC battery tray back in the car was a bit fiddly, it was hard to get all three holes to line up.

In the end I had the tray in and it was a huge improvement to before.  It’s still obvious it was painted with a brush, but there is no longer any rust or detritus.

Final step was to re-install the battery.   While I was there, I installed a battery hold down.   I had a couple on hand, a very rusty one from the 420SEL parts car, and a reasonable one that I found in the boot of the 560SEL after I ordered new ones.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with that big Delkor battery. Off the top of my head, I don’t think it fits any car I have. I may try and sell it. It wasn’t cheap, but it did get me home.

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It is also worth checking the W126 battery tray for another reason.   It is easy for leaves to accumulate under the battery tray.   This can cause rust, especially on cars that park outside.   The leaves never really dry out and rust starts to form.    My 560SEL is in excellent condition and has been garaged all its life.   It still had a fairly nasty battery tray with a lot of leaves stuck underneath it.

The W126 battery tray was worse than the one I fixed on my 450SLC.   As the bolts were a bit rusty I soaked then in penetrating oil.  The tray is held on with four bolts and a nut.   Two that attach to the firewall, a big one on the bottom left that is obscured by the wiring loom and a smaller one at the top left that doens’t actually hold the tray on, it attaches a bracket for a power distribution block.    The nut would be visible on the bottom right but is obscured by leaves.

Normally there is a bracket that holds the battery to the tray.   This was missing on my car so I have ordered a new one.   There are two nuts that hold this bracket to the tray.    These can be seen in the next photo after I removed the leaves and applied the penetrating oil.

After the use of the penetrating fluid the bolts and nut removed fairly easily.   I was then confronted with a massive volume of leaves and debris.   After vacuuming them away, I also found an EHA o-ring and a washer, I guess they had been dropped there over the years.    I find a vacuum cleaner is ideal to remove this debris – even a household unit is fine – I am using my grandmothers old 80’s electrolux in the garage and its fine.   This vacuum cleaner pre-dates the car.

I was pretty lucky.  Despite all that debris, there was no rust apparent on the body work.   This is likely because the car has been garaged all its life.   I don’t think a car parked outside would fare very well as the leaves would never dry out properly.   The only area I had to treat was the captive bolt that helps attach the battery tray.   There was a very slight amount of rust at the base of this bolt that I treated and painted.

overall the area looked very good once the debris was removed.   The big bracket that can be seen in the photo holds the sway bar bushing on.

Once the area had been cleaned I started work on the tray itself.   As with the 450SLC, I used a wire brush attachment for my drill to remove as much of the rust as possible.   In one area of the tray it was quite corroded.    The photo below shows the tray with the rust removed.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo before starting to spray the primer so there is a little primer there.  The side shown was worse, but there was also rust on the underside, in particular where the attachment tongue joins the tray.

I used a separate primer on the W126 battery tray before the paint.   Probably if I wanted an even better finish I would have the tray powder coated.   This isn’t something I can do myself.

After priming, I applied two top coats.  I think both of my coats were too heavy as the paint ended up a bit soft.    I made this same mistake when I did the 450SLC tray as well.   Something to work on next time I restore a battery tray.   I’ve not inspected the trays on my 300SE or 560SEC, and they’ll probably need doing too.   The photo below shows the freshly painted tray and the corroded areas are quite apparent.

Once I finished, installed the battery tray and the new battery I purchased a couple of months ago.   The old one was working, but it failed the battery test.  I didn’t want to be left stranded with a bad battery.

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I probably would have tried a bit harder with the reconditioning if it wasn’t for a 30% off sale on DIN batteries at Supercheap auto.    It seemed like a good opportunity to replace the battery with a new one.    The SLC calls for a DIN65L size.   The Century battery I purchased has a 660 CCA rating which is better than the 600 rating of the NRMA battery it replaced.

The SLC  battery is easy to remove.   The battery is held down with a bracket.   You’ll need a 10mm deep socket and a long extension to easily remove it.   With the battery removed, I was able to see the condition of the 450SLC battery tray.    Over the years leaks from various batteries had caused the battery tray to develop surface rust.   It seemed a good opportunity to repair this.

The 450SLC battery tray is held down with four bolts that can be removed with the same 10mm socket.   Once it is removed it is a simple matter to clean it up with a wire brush attachment on a drill.   Unfortunately the SLC was blocking in the other cars so I needed to make a quick job of it.     The battery tray cannot be seen once the battery is installed, so the objective was to reduce rust rather than cosmetic.   Still the wire brush attachment cleaned it up rather well.

The picture is not great as I was doing the job at night and I only had a mobile phone to illuminate.    It showed that the rust was just surface rust and the battery tray was in otherwise good condition.   In the ideal situation, I would have used some turps to clean the battery tray after this.   I didn’t have any so just blew the dust off it and used some rags.   After this most basic cleaning I primed the surface.   I went with a separate primer as I thought it would be more durable than a paint and prime.

Once the primer had tried, it was time to apply the top coats.   My 450SLC battery tray was starting to look pretty good again!    There is some grit in the paint where my cleaning job wasn’t quite up to scratch but overall I am pretty happy.

Once I let the paint properly dry, I cleaned the threads.   it was easier than masking them off, especially as I didn’t have tape on hand.   I had a cheap tap and die kit I purchased at Harbor Freight in the US which came in handy.

The other advantage of removing the 450SLC battery tray is the ability to clean underneath it.   There was a fair amount of dirt and debris that would be impossible to clear without removing the tray.   There was also a low point where a bit of surface rust had formed.   I treated this while i was at it.

Finally, a new battery was also an opportunity to fit an attachment for my Ctek battery charger.   I didn’t do a full disconnect switch like on the 250SE but the attachment makes it easier to connect the charger.   For some reason the Ctek attachments have really small eyelets so I cut those off and crimped in bigger ones that I could attach to the battery terminals.

I always write the month and year I replace the battery on top to quickly see its age later.   The battery I was replacing was from 2012.

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