In the summer of 2012, we stumbled upon a nice project to get into car stuff: an MB L319. So heck, we just bought it.

It was used as a delivery van for heavy stuff for some years, then modified to a camper and used until 2007.

It was possible to drive it home on its own wheels, which was an adventure by itself: It began with a tow-start, on the highway parts of the roof paint splattered off, sand-like rust particles trickling down everywhere, the smell of diesel, deep rumbling noise caused by the vibrating massive wood furniture - all this while traveling at maximum speed of ~40mph...

The starter does not work and there is a lot of rust damage at the inner structure and shell because there were holes in the roof at some time in the past. Due to all the rust and the damaged wood floor, we ripped that all out back home.

Winter 2012/2013 came, and the L319 went into hibernation, covered by an big old PVC advertising poster for glasses.

Time to get a welder and more tools (all bought broken and then repaired to learn how they work), practice welding etc... In 2013, not much happened on the car itself, except on the back doors, where we started first tries in metal work and painting.

Initial condition on the lower/innser side of the back doors:

some welding later...

The spot welds were grinded down, the surface leveled out by lead body work.

An improvised spray booth out of foil, tape and the garage door...

...gives quite nice results for the rust protection primer:

Out of personal reasons (finished B.Eng., new flat, ...) and other projects (replacing the cylinder head on an BMW which was really interesting by itself, ...), nothing more happened on the L319 in 2013.

Winter 2013/2014 came, and the L319 went into hibernation.