My CL500 Project

[david arthur]

What a stonking car, a real head turner, well done.
a car to be proud of.

 

[peterwhayward]

Brilliant job, well done.

 

[television]

Very nice and well done a cheap car by all means

 

[Jdokal]

Very nice!! Make sure you give it a good wax or use a good synthetic sealant, then watch the water bead!!!

Your paint job looks very good from the pictures!!! I would assume you must be very chuffed!!!

How long did it take in total from purchasing?

 

[peterwhayward]

Give yer £3961 for it...........shows a small profit and youve had the enjoyment of all that work!

 

[Haylands]

Thanks chaps, it does look real nice....

to answer a few questions

Its already been polished with the new Meguires polymer stuff... leather cleaned and fed, windows rainx'ed basically every surface has been done so is sorted for a while...

I picked it up on 16th May so a couple of weeks...

One advantage of living "up north" is that things tend to be cheaper, I have had quite a bit of work done at the paintshop so I think he does it as cheap as he can but it was still a pleasant shock when he said how much it would be... mind you it's a pretty easy car to prep...

If anyone wants some doing, let me know and I'll pass on his number...

 

[andys320]

Looks a lovely car - good work enjoy it!

 

[Haylands]

Give yer £3961 for it...........shows a small profit and youve had the enjoyment of all that work!

I won't take a penny less than £4000 (yeah right!!!)

 

[Juddian]

What a difference from before, well done.

In my humble opinion the 215 is the most handsome coupe of he last 20 years bar none.

A refill of the underside with anti corrosion treatments and ongoing good maintenance should see years of use.

Good paint shop that, unbeatable value for money.

 

[Gkinghorn]

Fantastic job .... Looks as good as new ....

 

[Haylands]

Thanks chaps, I did have to attend to some surface rust around the front jacking points, all ground off, treated then undersealed and I did have a peak under the plastic floor pans and there is some mild surface rust so It's on the list for all the undertrays off and a good sort out....

 

[Mcobinad]

Job well done! Car was resurrected back to life

 

[Haylands]

Hi,

When doing the respray I noticed the seals on the rear wings where the doors and windows meet was getting very worn... Mercedes wanted £531 for them as you have to buy a full set!!!! There was some wind noise at motorway speeds as well...

Well a £0.99 sheet of 1mm rubber from ebay, some superglue and some tiger seal and I've sorted them, maybe not quite to factory fresh standard but they don't look too bad and the noise has gone!!! I cut a piece to shape for the lower seal, then had more fun with the vertical seal that is fixed to the rear window, I stuck the new piece of rubber to it but as the front window slides against it, when it goes up, it pulled the edge away from the metal trim.... solution, very carefully cut the rubber at a 45% angle all the way up the edge by the metal piece, mask it up well and tigerseal the joint, it now lies flush with the window up and looks very respectable... In the photos it looks a bit dodgy around the bottom of the lower bits,!! it looks much better in the flesh... just the angle it's taken from I think.... So worth a try if your are the same....

 

[nicolas]

Brilliant Job! Your car looks so stunning. Well done and thank you for sharing all pics!

 

[Haylands]

Sorry to all who replied... I didn't see the "thanks" button till just now...

All thanked now

 

[Haylands]

Hi

I wanted to keep all the work I do on the CL in one place.... what section should this post be in as it's more than just bodywork!! Could a mod move it to a more appropriate place and rename it something suitable??

Anyway, latest job was to fix the aircon that was working fine till a lorry in front of me went over a big bump and chucked out loads of stones.... I was a fair distance behind and braked as soon as I saw the avalanche but it was too late... three chips in the nice new paint and two holes in the air con condenser...

A thank you to Malcolm for the relevant workshop pages...

First job was to remove the electric fan and shroud, only two screws and one elec plug and it lifts out

Then had to drain the water rad, some ham fisted idiot had snapped off the drain cock but it was easy enough to drain it through the bottom hose after taking the front undertrays off, then undo the two transmission cooler pipes from the rad, disconect the top hose, 5 screws later and the water rad was out, unscrew the ABC rad from the front of the aircon condenser and move it out the way, then disconnect the pipes from the power steering rad that is built into the top of the aircon rad. Another two pipes from the aircon and it was free... no need to have the system evacuated before hand as it had lost the lot...

You then end up with a big hole in the front of the car and various puddles underneath it where your drip tray has missed!! (I keep a bag of cement in the garage for oil spills, it's very good and getting it all up)

You can see the damage and the wet patches on the rad here...

Here is a new and old shot.... You can see that the power steering rad in the top is bigger in the new one

Have a leak and change the condenser and you should change the reciever/dryer at the same time, it's here on the CL (circled in red) Also noticed it was a bit wet on top of the power steering resevoir, the dip stick thingy has split it's rubber top and oil is splashing out so that's on the list for replacement as well....

It has two pipes in it which are held in with external torx bolts, so you need some torx sockets, it has two "O" rings on the pipes so be careful and keep everything clean, the "O" rings were in perfect condition and still very supple so I reused them, same as the ones on the condenser, The dryer just pulls out from underneath it's held in with a plastic clip, the pipes stop it dropping out the bottom.... Old and new dryers...

Assembly was a reverse of removal, bit fiddly getting the water rad side plastic trims in but not too bad...

I took the opportunity to change the coolant, I used some new 5 year coolant... Checked all the oil levels afterwards, didn't seem to lose very much gearbox oil but it did need about 3/4ltr of ABC power steering fluid to top up, far more than came out the old rad, I suppose this can only help the life of the oil..... took it for a drive to get nice and warm and then left it overnight to settle, checked for leaks the next day, checked the levels again and then took it to be gassed up... had it vacumed out for ages then filled with the correct weight of gas...

Its better than ever now... very cold...

Costs

Air Con Condenser & Reciever/dryer £129.48 delivered
ABC oil from Merc 1ltr £18 (robbing so and so's)
Antifreeze £20
Regas £45

So not too bad all in....

 

[Haylands]

Hi all

Not posted for a long while.... been building a cafe next door to my sarnie shop and been doing it all myself so been rather busy, also my mother had a stroke so been doing a 500mile round trip to see her, she is now nearly back to normal so good news there....

Did several thousand miles visiting her and did most of it in the Merc as it's just so much nicer to sit in it rather than the daily driver, a Volvo XC70... although the Volvo does do nearly twice as many MPG.....

On one of the trips home I set the cruise for 70mph and was pleasantly surprised by this

Over 30mpg.....!!!! very happy with that...

We had a weekend in Scotland booked... driving up the west side to Loch Marie, then onto the cost, head east and then back home to Hull

When I bought the Merc one of the few things not working was the lumbar supports in both front seats, they are controlled by vacume and being a two door with tip forward front seats the pipes had become hard and were leaking, the system times them out and switches them off if it detects a leak, so I disconnected the battery then reconnected it and listened for leaks... both front seats and under the rear seat as well.... I did plan to repipe them but it's a very lengthy job and I know from previous Mercs that they don't give me enough support anyway.... then remembered that the old Granada Coswsorth I had back in the 90s had stand alone electric pumped lumbar supports and as luck would have it I picked up some on ebay for £10 each

They come with a bladder, an electric motor and pump and just need 12v and earth to work, switch the + and - and they deflate...

took the back off the seat and you find this

You can see the white pipes for the lumbar and the bladder is just under the white foam on the back of the rest..

slid the new bladder in behind the panel and cut a slot for the inflation/deflation pipe, here you can see the pump in its plastic coated foam bag on the left side of the seat, it just fits in the space available, you can see the two electric wires waiting to be wired up

I bought some generic electric window switches and cut the original thumb wheel out of it's casing and fitted the new switches, there is already a good electric supply to under the seats so some wiring later and some fuses and it was ready to go... the switches look good as well... although why did Merc put a black plastic surround to them when the rest of the seat is charcoal??

Had been constantly moving the seats and opening and closing the doors whilst fitting them so decided to take it out for a quick spin to charge the battery and check everything was OK as it was only two days to the Scotland trip.... got home and pulled into the garage, got out and saw a line of fluid all up the drive.... was wondering what it was, turned around to see this slick growing from the rear wheel and the corner of he car sinking!!!!!!!

stuck a jack under it quick and took the weight but as it was late I left it to the next day to investigate...

It was the rear ABC pipe, I dropped the arch liner and found the pipe had been damaged at some point, looked like a tyre fitter had banged the tyre into the top center of the rear arch and bent the pipe against the bodywork, over time it had rubbed against the inner arch and worn a hole through... darn lucky it happened when it did, the oil stain went about 400yds down the road, if it had gone when we left for Scotland it would have lost all the fluid and taken the pump out as well...

I didn't have time to fix it myself so got the local indie to do it, the pipe is metal and rubber and goes from the rear strut to under the passenger seat so quite a job to get off... the pipe was £200 and he charged me £85 including the oil and reset the system....

We left for Scotland the next day and had a great time, found some lovely driving roads and some very nice hotels... the new lumbar's were great and the Merc didn't miss a beat,we did 1232 miles from Thursday morning till Sunday afternoon at an average speed of 53mph and did 25.5mpg

It's been sat in the garage for the last few weeks hiding from the salt,but were are spending the weekend in the peaks so it will get a run..

 

[television]

The other ABC pipe to check is the one that goes from the drivers side just under the front of the door to the other side of the car, these can rust and split

 

[clk208]

Great to see some DIY and sensible cost repairs put into place on this old beauty!

Goes to show with a bit of thought it's possible to keep these lovely old barges on the road without having to put £1000s away for maintenance.

Must be a great way to travel.

 

[brianbrian]

Many thanks for your time have read and watched, worth every penny as it will still be worth a few quid in 5years, as you have not got the depreciation of the car from new. Hope this helps