A quick follow up on the 1985 (incorrectly titled 1983) MB undriven for 20 years:
I made a few PM inquiries to some of the posters on this thread and received very good advice. Many thread replies also gave me food for thought.
A special thank you to loneryder who sent me a link that gave the names of private repair shops in my area. Not having the confidence or perhaps willingness to do the work myself plus having some fear of causing more harm than good, we met with three of the repair shops and wound up choosing one that had done work on this vehicle years ago when it was being driven, to look the car over and provide an estimate for the work. AAA towed the car there.
Just about every item that posters on the thread thought might be necessary were recommended plus a couple of additional items: motor mounts, replace rusted transmission pan, replace leaking oil pan gasket, and new worn front shocks and front lower ball joints. The total cost is within the range (though closer to the upper limit) that we were led to believe, and within the range that I had suspected from the posts made on this thread. The parts were received and the car may be done by the end of next week or early the following week. (Note: after putting a new battery in and draining the fuel tank plus a couple of other minor items, the car did, indeed, start right up, according to the shop; just as several posters suspected
)
I am now debating how much to drive the car. There is a car insurer, Hagerty, that insures classic (over 25 years old) cars but limits the miles driven to 2 or 3k per year (not exactly sure which), that may be too low for how I probably want to use it. A Hagerty policy costs about $330/yr. If I expect to drive more than that, I'll put it on our current policy, but the cost will be more than double for liability alone, and higher if it includes collision.
I'll post pictures when I have the car back.
Thanks to all!