My CL500 Project

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Thanks Chaps


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

Thanks for that I'll check it out....

Mine came with the optional wood steering wheel,

IMG_0086.jpg


Now I know they look very nice but they are not good for precise cornering, feed the wheel through your hands and the difference in friction between the wood and the leather is just too much for me.... so... some will say a retrograde step but I found a "new old stock" 2004 full leather steering wheel and I LOVE IT...!!!!

IMG_0085.jpg


Also bought some cheap reproduction LED wing mirror lights, they fit very well and work fine too so pretty happy with them!!

IMG_0091.jpg
 

television

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You are doing well there and looking good
 

Mic

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I too prefer the all leather wheel in my SL to the one with timber in my CL from a driving point of view......the wooden one is the better looking.

Mic
 
OP
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Thanks chaps, been for a nice long drive in it and I have to say it is way better with the new wheel... I'm also impressed that the patern indicators didn't throw up a fault... they work fine....

Just noticed Mic we both have a CL and a 4x4 Volvo..!! Small world....
 
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television

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Thanks chaps, been for a nice long drive in it and I have to say it is way better with the new wheel... I'm also impressed that the patern indicators didn't throw up a fault... they work fine....

Just noticed Mic we both have a CL and a 4x4 Volvo..!! Small world....

I have 2 x CL and a Volvo:D:D
 
OP
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I have 2 x CL and a Volvo:D:D

Thats just greedy.... :D:D

I've noticed before that people have Merc and Volvo.... wonder why... I love the Volvo but being an auto turbo diesel it's flat as a pancake off the line.... I jump in the Merc and scare myself to death!!!
 

television

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Thats just greedy.... :D:D

I've noticed before that people have Merc and Volvo.... wonder why... I love the Volvo but being an auto turbo diesel it's flat as a pancake off the line.... I jump in the Merc and scare myself to death!!!

We are practical people,, that why :D My V70 is the R version
 
OP
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Thanks for the comments guys...

Well that dreaded MOT time had come round so I had to fix the only problem I knew of, the airbag warning light has been on for a while, had it code read and it was the driver’s side airbag so obviously suffering from the door loom problem (those who don't know it's the fact that it has the double opening hinges on the doors so they open wide but not far, makes the wiring to the door bend twice and get pulled every time you open the door, after a while the wires become work hardened and snap)

The only real fix is to take the whole loom out of the door, feed it back through to the drivers foot well and replace the wires one at a time, there are 28 wires and the vacuum pipe for the soft close doors, I bought some wire from eBay in assorted sizes and colours and started...

Door panel off (look on YouTube if you need to know how it comes off) then removed the keyless entry aerial unclip and unplug all the wiring harness and tape it up to feed it back through



This is the tunnel they put from the face of the door through to the door jam, makes it easy to get the wires through



Started to pull it back through and you can see where someone has been in there before



Pulled it back through and took the door jamb cover off and found this mess!!!



It’s in three separate looms so I pulled them into the car one at a time, then it was just a case of cutting out, soldering in and heat shrinking where needed, three wires were actually broken including one for the airbag and about a dozen more were very hard and needed replacing, the can bus wires were chaffed through so I had to do them as well, very fine wires and a pig to do.....

I decided not to retape the harness as this IMHO seems to help in breaking them!! keeps them all tight together so they have to bend in one.... I pulled them back through and they looked like this



looks a bit messy but they are now all done correctly

I used some nylon expanding sleeving I had in the garage, came off some old car I had, it's very flexible and smooth so seemed the ideal candidate... hope it does what I hope it will!!



Then it was just a case of feeding it all through and plugging it all in, refix the loom and put the door back together, all in all took about 3 hours with a few coffee breaks.... ended up with this lot on the floor afterwards!!!



Took it to our local indie and he turned the airbag light off for the modest price of £10... very good of him as I hate to think what the dealer would charge!!!

Whilst at the indie I had to pull it into the garage and squeeze it in so ended up with it parked on full lock, don't like leaving it like that when parked as it puts undue stress on the steering but I thought it won't be for long so would be OK..... lucky I did as I found the front two tyres were rather badly worn on the very inside edge, I knew they were not far off the wear lines and I had been doing research on replacements but thought these would be OK for the MOT.... how wrong I was!!!

This is what it looked like from looking under the arch.... could see a bit of feathering on the inside edge



But this wear is well past the edge, nearly on the sidewall....





So after some new 245/40/18's with a minimum Z speed rating... also a tyre make that does both sizes fitted to the CL500 so have to come in 265/40/18 as well....

It's got Continentals on the front and Dunlops on the back at present, read loads of tyre reviews and came to the conclusion that it's pot luck with tyre wear/noise/grip etc.... seems to depend a lot on the car type.... prices for premium brands started at about £130 a tyre and went upwards...

Then came across Maxxis, had several offroaders in the past with their mud tyres and was really impressed with them...

To cut a long story short I went for Maxxis MA-Z1 track day/drift tyres these are 245/40/18 97W so exceed the Z rating and a pretty high load rating, they get excellent reviews and are supposed to be the holy grail of tyres.... grip well and last well.... er yeah right!!!!

Maxxi are trying to get into the Drift scene at the moment so have developed this tyre to be very tough and not delaminate under track day/drifting conditions.... maybe they will last longer than the Conties... they were also only £81 so I thought for that price I'd give them a go, I expect them to be a bit loud with that aggressive V shaped tread pattern



They turned up so I popped down to a mate to get him to put them on, fitted and balanced no problem, asked him to balance the rears as well and then came the fun.... some total (fill in your favourite slander) head had rattle gunned on the locking wheel nuts, so out came the breaker bar and unfortunately it lived up to its name.... one rear came off alright then this happened on the other one



My mate offered to have a go with some removal tools but he was getting a queue so I said I'd sort it myself seeing as they didn't "have" to come off....

Dropped in at the Main Dealers on the way home and had a chat with Service, they said they'd have a go.... sat and drank coffee for over an hour getting more and more worried about the cost!!! Was then told they found a key that fitted and had managed to loosen all 4 off and correctly retorqued them, he handed me a new locking wheel nut, I asked how much and he just said "That's OK, no charge" well, after falling over I thanked him a thousand times and went to try the new front tyres out on the way to the MOT station....

First impressions are good, very crisp turn in, not to hard a ride and quieter than the worn out Continentals... I expect these will get louder as they wear...

Got it MOT'd and it sailed through with not even an advisory so dead chuffed...

A few more ideas in the pipeline so watch this space....

Costs

Wiring £14
Air bag light reset £10
Tyres £162
Fitting £20
MOT £40

So £246.... not bad at all, this CL has not cost as much as I thought it would (and yes, I know I shouldn't have said that!!!)
 

television

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What a wonderful job you have done,,, truthfully it is the only way to do it.

Thanks for a great post,,, your last one here with all the wiring should be in the DIY section as we have to tell so many members what to do,,it would be a great DIY
 

a11mcr

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Great post, looks like theres hope for my s320 yet! if it ends up half as good as yours i will be happy.
Mark
 
OP
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Thanks for the comments,

Changed the Auto box fluid today along with the filter, sump bolts came out real easy but I couldn't get the sump plug out, did this to a snap-on socket!!!!! and still wouldn't budge....



Then took it for a four wheel align, due to the wear on the front tyres, was a couple of degrees out on the tracking but the rest was OK, I can feel the difference though....
 
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Hi folks, thanks for the comments, been busy again playing with the CL....

I'd noticed some rust and corrosion under the edges of the plastic shields that give the car a flat bottom so decided to sort it now the weather was getting better (yeah right!!!) as although my garage is big enough I wanted to jet wash off the underside....

First job was to get it up on axle stands, used the suspension mounts to the body for the stands as I needed the jacking points clear to be able to get the plastic bottom off.... it was rock solid like this





These are the plastic shields, there are 13 of them in total including the arch liners, they are all held on with plastic nuts onto studs welded to the floor pan and arches, loads of WD40 was needed as the studs tend to rust and expand inside the plastic nut, it then sheers off as you undo them, I managed to get most of them off OK with some heat from a hot air gun...



The rear edge of the drivers front wheel arch to floor lining has been hit by something in the past and badly bent, it stayed this shape when I took it off but some serious heat from a hot air gun got it back into shape





I also planned on doing a few other jobs whilst the car had its wheels off and was at a decent height, new discs and pads all round and paint the callipers and also modify the centre console to accept an up to date multi-function 7" touch screen sat nav/radio/iPod/Bluetooth hands free thingy!! and finally a full carbon fibre wrap over all the internal wood... nothing like giving yourself a challenge!!....

Front disc were well past their best



After getting all the shields off and a good jet washing I was pleasantly surprised, the main rust areas were the two cill seams there was no underseal at all on them, or the rest of the floor, the rust was only surface and was scraped off then wire brushed with an angle grinder attachment, there was some rust in the wheel arches and around all the studs that had been welded to the floor and arches to hold the plastic on, the rest of the floor and underside was fine..... apart from one bit just behind the driver’s seat where it looks like some idiot had jacked the car on the cill and it had slipped on the jack and split the floor, rust had set in around the split so I took the driver’s seat out and the carpet and cut back to good metal and welded in a repair section.

The driver’s side cill and floor, the black stuff on the cill was put there when I did the respray to hold back the rust until I had time to do it properly, otherwise no rustproofing at all anywhere!!!


A front arch, just a bit where the shield doesn't reach, all ground out and treated here with rust convertor


And a rear arch, much the same story


This was the split in the floor, cut out back to good metal here


And a patch welded in, then sealed and etch primed before underseal


This is my brother who came to help out for a couple of days, he was a star and spent a lot of time under the car attending to all the rust, he also had several impromptu acupuncture sessions as bristles from the wire brush in the angle grinder came flying out at 15,000rpm, so be warned and wear good eye and ear protection if you do the same....



We then used the Dynotrol 3 stage rust treatment, first a rust convertor, then a thin coat of ML3125 to penetrate into the seams, followed by a liberal coating of 4941, this stuff is superb, been using it for years, I always paint it on as I find you can get better coverage and work it into corners easier, it dries to a rubberised feel, and sticks like the proverbial.... Then injected the cills with more ML3125 to soak into the cill seam.






That was the rust taken care of so then onto the brakes, decided on EBC Ultimate discs and Red Stuff Pads as I've used them before and they are excellent. They are grooved discs, unlike the ones on there that were drilled and showed signs of cracking around the holes and had badly scored...

I wanted the callipers to look different but subtle so decided on metallic gunmetal with silver decals, tried decals in the past and they never last long so went about it a different way....

The callipers were in pretty good condition, the paint had worn off them a bit in places, here they are sanded ready for paint





Sprayed with a couple of coats of silver



Then stuck the decals on, decided on "Mercedes Benz" on the front callipers and the logo on the rear as it fits the calliper nicely,





Then sprayed with the metallic gunmetal, removed the decals to reveal the silver.



Then lacquered over all of it, all three paints were high temp... I do like the look of them, fitted the new discs and pads as well as new front back plates as the old ones had been damaged, also fitted one front hub seal as it was just starting to let grease out, new wear sensors finished off the job....



EBC Ultimate discs come black to help corrosion, this wears off the face when used



Wheels cleaned and back on, and after a drive where the black finish has been worn off the disc..




Continued....
 
OP
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Then onto my favourite bit, modifying and updating the interior.... I have modified quite a few cars now to take a double din unit, and do enjoy it....

This is the starting point, a bare centre console wood trim, for those that don't know it is made of aluminium then covered in wood and finally veneer



The original command unit is a two and a half din and fills three holes, I bought a cheap two din surround to help with the sizing

Cut out the console and trimmed the surround to fit



Glued the surround in place, I used hot glue as its good for this type of thing



Then cut some wood to give me an edge to work to as the console has a compound curve and the surround didn't.



Used glass fibre paste to build up the surround, the tape on the wood stops it sticking to it and makes it easier to remove.



Removed the wood



Then it's just a bit of bodywork to sort it out, a quick dose of filler



Then some high build primer,



Flatted off and then some satin black, it's not really necessary to paint it before wrapping but it helps to be able to check what it will look like when finished... The tricky bit is working out the best position and angle for the head unit so that it looks good but also doesn't give too many reflections on the screen when in use, I modified the original mount for the command unit and welded it to the mound for the head unit so it is very secure and the angle has worked out just as I hoped it would..



I installed a night vision rear view camera as well so all the boot had to come out for the wiring, also took the door trims and rear side trims out, the back seat and rear centre cubby box, not much left inside now!!!

Found a pin out for the 2.5 command head unit from 2000 but unfortunately mine was nothing like it, most of mine was controlled by can bus, no reverse feed, or even a lights on feed so had to do a fair bit of tracing and wiring to get the head unit to work, is now working as it should, dims at night, automatically switches to rear camera as you select reverse, stays on when you switch off until you open the door... It did claim to have built in can bus feeds for the steering wheel controls and I did try to use this but the difference in voltage on the can bus from the steering wheel buttons is very small and the unit couldn't cope, but not too worried, it's hardly a reach to turn the sound down!!!!

I've got a Kenwood 7" head unit in my Volvo that I use every day, it cost nearly £1000 a few years ago, as the Merc is a weekend toy I didn't want to spend loads so thought I'd get one of the cheap ones from China via eBay for the Merc, this was the one I got

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121042698862?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Not bad for £164.00 !!!! it has

HD Digital Touch Screen, Colour Illumination, Dual Zone, GPS Navigation, Real Clock, Change Background image and Icon Position at will, Analogue TV, Radio RDS, Bluetooth hands-free, A2DP Bluetooth, Front and Rear View Camera input, IPOD Audio Input and Control, Games, Calendar, Calculator, Compass, virtual 6 Disc, Wi-Fi & 3G Internet Ready, USB, SD

It all works very well, takes a smidge longer than the Kenwood at responding to buttons but the only thing I can really complain about is that it totally mutes the radio when giving driving instructions, then waits a second before the radio comes back on... the Kenwood just reduces the volume of the radio as it plays instruction... Oh and you can't leave a DVD in the machine all the time as it won't switch to radio unless you eject it... hardly an issue!!!!

It also arrived very well packed and turned up within three days via airmail from China....

It comes with a built in microphone but I fitted an external one in the place Mercedes fit the original, just behind the rear view mirror, the hands free works very well, made a few calls and the quality seems good even at speed.

I removed all the wood trim from the door cards and trim to fully wrap it, you get a much better job than leaving them in situ, the heat the interior can get to will slightly shrink the wrap and you will see an edge....

I've found the other secret is to use primer on edges and areas where you have to cut it to size exactly and can't wrap it round, most of the Merc switches are such a tight fit you have to cut the wrap on the surface and not wrap it round as the buttons then stick in the hole!!

The primer is water based and will come off with remover should you wish to revert to original, bit difficult in my case with the modified console...

You can see the primer on these pieces



Then it was just a case of wrapping that nasty REAL Wood with some FAKE Carbon fibre!!!??! I used 3M Di-Noc Carbon Fibre Vinyl Sheet, there are cheaper ones and also a lot of fake ones around, they are nowhere near as good as the real thing, it's worth the bit extra...

Not going to go into the process here as it's been done to death but if you decide to have a go then just be patient at first and learn how the stuff works...

Here are some after shots when it was all back together and I'm pleased to say it's all working just as it should and no squeaks or rattles from anywhere

Centre console, I also had a go at the oddments bin lid and the switch plate above it, they were covered in leather on mine, primered the whole thing and the wrap stuck like poo to a blanket and didn't pucker when heated to set the shape so I'm hopeing it will work long term, the chrome elements were removed before wrapping, then refitted to give that factory look



Some detail shots,

Gear knob looks good





These are the bits that were leather covered



That chrome bit in the ashtray is backlit so really wanted to keep it



Passenger side and the centre have the carbon running the same way, from the top to bottom running forward



Drivers side is the other way, keeps it looking neat...



Rear vent



Rear cubby box, wooden top slotted so it can retract, lots of cutting here...







Oh and one last thing the head unit has is twelve different backlight colours for the buttons, they are also mixable so you can get the exact shade to match the car.... bit difficult to photo but the colours are spot on to the naked eye.... and no I wasn't doing 53mph when I took this photo it was in display mode....

 

alexanderfoti

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A lot of really good work into this, looking great on all fronts!
 

television

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What lovely work all the way through,, if only more could post like it :D:D
 

whitenemesis

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Nicely done many could learn from your experience :)
 

toby1

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Excellent thread and thanks for sharing
 

Naraic

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Great write up.
 


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