C16 RKC's Project 2003 CL500 (and other stragglers)

[c16rkc]

Good read up, not sure if you remember me from the Jag forums, mostly had XJRs think my red X308 was the most popular on there. Good to see you on here any how's.
Yes I remember you very well; I seem to remember you had an X351 when I last heard from you.

I actually noticed you on here last week when I was browsing lots of the threads and found pictures of your car; your new Mercedes is lovely! I actually think it's nicer that any Jag in the modern ranges.

Is your ABC fault red or white when it comes up on the dash? Generally red signifies loss of pressure, while white is electrical signal.

The message is white, and so I am guessing it is nothing too serious yet. The errors tend to clear when you turn the car off/on too, as the pump kicks in and the ride level goes back to where it should be. However when driving the error can return oddly, and on one occasion was accompanied by the ride dropping noticeably.

The corners seem to sink over a few days; but not evenly. I think it's a good chance the blocks are leaking and that's why I plan to do those first. But I think it's likely there are other things at play too.

I recognise your username, I am thinking I maybe came across you on another forum. The idea of someone who bought a Bentley sounds familiar; you must have a very good job!

 

[c16rkc]

I wrote the above then thought again... M2287, are you the chap with the CL55 who did a steering wheel swap with me when I had my S class?

 

[c16rkc]

One less mouth to feed

No, no, no I've not sold one of my children.... Well in a way I have; the BMW is finally gone!

It sold on Friday night , these are some of the last pictures I took before she was listed for sale. I am going to miss this car, but I won't miss the lease payments!



















Now I have more space in the garage for the Daimler and the CL500 to stretch out, so I have re-positioned them side by side.



Shock horror... is the Daimler having bladder problems too?

If you study the photo above, you will notice that there is a pool of something below the front of the Daimler. This was there when I moved the Daimler from it's other orientation near the doors.

It is completely dry, so it may have been from a previous position I had left the Mercedes (I cannot remember where they have all been now...) but I does give me reason to keep an eye on this one too!

Aston

Sadly I had little time to spend in the garage over the Bank Holiday weekend. Friday I had a lot of jobs around the house to do, and Saturday we have visitors. Then on Bank holiday Monday I had to take Aston to hospital as he was coughing up snot, and spiked a temperature of 40 degrees. My wife took over yesterday so I could come to work, and Aston is seeming better now; thought still has a temperature. Hoping by the end of the week he'll be back home.



Back to the Mercedes

However I did have time to get a look under the Mercedes. The drips have not changed much other than the one at the center of the car. That looks much worse.

I looked underneath the car, and it appears it is dripping from the end of a bolt.



Does anyone know what this black thing is? - The gearbox?

 

[c16rkc]

It has been a while since my last update, as I have been flat out busy. But there has been lots of things happening in the background.


The atmosphere is Electric!

So first of all, after a the recommendation by one of our favorite forum members, I managed to get an electrician to install power for my garage door, sockets, and lights.

All hooked up, it is working perfectly, and the lights are nice and bright too.


Sliding doors

After a long and painful wait, the garage door was fitted on Thursday (12th) last week.



It looks fantastic, and the operation is lovely and smooth. I am very, very pleased with it.

However... as is often the case these days, the supplier appears to have been somewhat of a Cowboy.

It took me 10 minutes to notice huge gaps at both sides of the door, as the guides are held on four 12mm thick spacers each side.







It was pretty obvious this would let wind and rain in, so I thought it sensible to contact the installer!

I said to Lindsey I could not for a second believe anyone would deliberately leave gaps like this either side of a garage door install, and I therefore guessed this might have been left by accident. So I contacted the installer and asked.



In fairness to the installer, he is correct that the steel above the opening protruded by 6mm (but not 15mm as he suggests). However he came out and looked at it all before he quoted, so I really feel that was his responsibility to sort out any install materials needed to do a professional job.

Worse still I know I told him about that when I phoned him, and I can remember him saying it would not be a problem as he could fill it in with spacers; perhaps these are what he meant!

The funniest thing about all this, is that if he had told me on Thursday it needed timber spacers and would cost a little extra, I would have been perfectly happy. I know all too well how thick the average tradesman is, and I am used to having to pay for things they have missed.

I am not sure if I should post the rest of the messages that followed on Friday and Saturday, but suffice to say I was not happy with him spraying in some expanding foam, because that's not really a solution that can be left exposed.

His excuses included:

- My wife had signed off the installation.
- My first (above message) had said I was happy with the door.
- The door was not a weatherproof product.

He eventually caved in and agreed to add strips of timber to the sides of the opening, but by that time I had already started to think that was going to be a bit of a bodge. My thinking is that the guides are not supported evenly, and might start to disform. My preference would be to remove the four spacers, and swap out for one large 2 meter high spacer instead.

I also noticed that the roller box was also not sealed at the top, and that actually made sense as the center portion of the steel lintel sat 60mm away from the face of the garage opening, instead of 6mm proud of it. This mean that the back of the roller box is flapping about for the 5m run, and there is a clear air path into the garage. I really have no idea if this matters.

So I have messaged the manufacturer of the garage door, to ask their advice. What they say will allow me to make my decision on whether to let him fit his expanding foam and wood strips, make him do something else, or fix this myself.

In the mean time, he said Saturday night he was setting debt collectors on me on Monday 17th May 2022 (Yesterday). So I should get thrown in prison soon...


I've been naughty again...

I had a chat with Lindsey about her Lexus a few weeks ago, because its value has actually risen considerably since we bought it, and selling it might raise some useful funds for our commercial to residential property conversion we are doing in Kings Lynn.

She was open to a change, and we agreed to find something with a lower value so that we could put more cash into the property project. We started off with a £12-14K budget.

Lindsey originally wanted either an E class, or a CLS, as she thought they were the nicest looking cars. But the catch was that she ideally wanted a good spec; things like:

- Heated, electric, memory seats
- Reversing camera
- Front and rear parking sensors
- Keyless entry and start.
- Cream leather.
- Adaptive cruise control

Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

We tirelessly scoured the adverts for hundreds of E-class models around the 2011-2015 era. If one is lucky a car has one or two of the above. But most E-class models seem to be bum basic, so we ruled them out. Same with CLS models.... so we moved on to the S-class, and were looking at the W221 models. But sadly even those seem to be mostly basic spec.

So then I threw the net open to BMW, Audi and Jaguar models. We fared much better here.

BMW 5 series models occasionally have a good spec, but very hard to find. Ditto the 7 series. Jaguar XJs and XFs have a tremendous spec, but I am scared of buying the newer Jaguar Diesels as friends have had a lot of bad experiences with blocking DPFs.

So that left Audi.

There seemed to be plenty of high spec Audis, though Lindsey's wish list above was somewhat of a challenge. Then we spotted this Audi A7, which ticked off all of the above and more:





Some might spot I have blocked out the number plate, this is due to an inappropriate phone call I had from a Dealer when I was selling my BMW. He had clearly googled the plate and found my threads, and he used it to pressurise me and suggest I was "playing games", "needed the money", and should stop messing around and lower the price. It was a little unsettling, so I have decided to keep the "original" plates of our cars hidden from now on, so that when I take our private plates off to sell them they cannot be traced back to my threads.

The car has higher miles than I would have liked, at over 140K, but it has a full and comprehensive Audi main dealer history so that did not phase me. It just needs a severe detail, and stone chips touched in.

For now it sits in the garage awaiting it's time to shine. But now we have a Lexus to sell!

 

[SmartAmg]

Phew! Epic post, very interesting though, read it all.

 

[MCFastybloke]

Which engine?

 

[c16rkc]

Which engine?

3.0tdi 245bhp

 

[m2287]

I wrote the above then thought again... M2287, are you the chap with the CL55 who did a steering wheel swap with me when I had my S class?

You know what, it was a very long time ago but I seem to recall something of the sort!!! I’m not far from you aswell (cambridge) so it could well have been!

Give the level sensors a good clean, my bet is that one of them is sticking, I had the same issue on my CL55 (front right on mine). White light is definitely a sensor issue of some sort, the sagging will be a valve block which are actually pretty easy to rebuild yourself. I ended up DIY rebuilding pretty much every single ABC component on mine as I did over 100k miles in it.

 

[m2287]

Thinking about it did we have a hell of a time getting your wheel off?!

 

[c16rkc]

Thinking about it did we have a hell of a time getting your wheel off?!

That's right! - I had forgotten about that. We did it in front of your house, I remember now!

 

[c16rkc]

A Knight and his spurs

A bit of a mixed weekend here at the Clark's, I first decided to tidy up the few issues I had with out new garage door. Garage door installers no longer wire into electrical spurs, they just want to "plug in and go". So I have always known I would need to chop the plug off, and wire our garage door power into a new electrical spur.

Aston thinks it is amusing to switch off the socket that powers the garage door, so it has quickly become important to get this sorted!

Thankfully, when the electrician did my garage a few weeks back, I asked him to fit a 13A spur ready for me to wire it into. So I isolated the power to the garage, so that everything was completely dead, and opened up the spur.

Then I burst out laughing.... I'll show you why.

First I went to remove the screws, and one of them was loose, but oddly it just turned and turned, but could not be extracted. Then I removed the other, and thought wow these cables are short.

Then I saw inside...



I slowly pulled the cover and realised why one of the screws was loose... The threaded insert had been smashed off.

My guess is that the electrician had smashed the box apart by accident when knocking access for the cables. The cheap plastic boxes are notorious for that, and I was surprised he did not use metalclad versions... which are not much more expensive. When I was a controls engineer years ago we only ever used metalclad; I was taught that white plastic were just for unexposed use, inside houses.

So he had glued it back together using some white mastic...





Even Aston could not salvage the box.



Surely he realised I would find what he had done, when I wired the garage door in; unless he hoped I would blame the garage door guys?.... bizarre.

...anyway, life is too short to worry about such things, so I put in the metalclad one that should have been used all along - and I installed a brand new piece of cable, so there was now enough length to remove the cover properly.



I did not have any cable fixing brackets, so the cable is dangling at the moment, I need to buy and fit those ASAP.

Then I moved on to the draughty garage door side rails; some may remember the installers thought it was fine to leave huge gaps either side.



I purchased these 12mm thick plastic spacers online, custom cut for me at around £55 each. I think I paid around £130 posted.



Just in case anyone is wondering... this is the supplier (no affiliation with me, just thought it might be handy for some?)



Test fit, they look perfect.



Spencer helped me drill them out.



(Of course I never turned the drill on with Spencer close by!!)

All finished and worked a treat, sadly I forgot to take a photo... will add one later on.

 

[c16rkc]

You know what, it was a very long time ago but I seem to recall something of the sort!!! I’m not far from you aswell (cambridge) so it could well have been!

Give the level sensors a good clean, my bet is that one of them is sticking, I had the same issue on my CL55 (front right on mine). White light is definitely a sensor issue of some sort, the sagging will be a valve block which are actually pretty easy to rebuild yourself. I ended up DIY rebuilding pretty much every single ABC component on mine as I did over 100k miles in it.

I had never really given any thought to the level sensors, I'll add them into the mix of things to sort out!

Seems they are part number 0105427717 and pretty cheap, I may just replace them for brand new.

 

[c16rkc]

Good read up, not sure if you remember me from the Jag forums, mostly had XJRs think my red X308 was the most popular on there. Good to see you on here any how's.

Oh yes I remember you; though I thought you had an X351.

Your Mercedes looks stunning!!

 

[c16rkc]

The sickly Mercedes

Yesterday I got to spend a bit more time pulling the Mercedes apart, trying to find all the bits I want to replace/fix. I am pleased to say I have found them all now, and for the benefit of anyone curious, this is where they are:

Front valve block, and front accumulator (2203270115)

This is in the front of the left hand side front wheel arch, perhaps better described as in the front bumper/front wheel arch.



So you need to remove the undertray of the front bumper, and the front portion of the front wheel arch. Then this is what you will find.

(Note: Yes I am an idiot, and did not loosen the wheel bolts before I jacked the car up, so I am stuck with them in the way!)





Rear valve block, and return accumulator (2203200415)

This is the easiest to find, as it is in front of the left hand side rear wheel. You simply remove the rear most undertray in that area and you will see it easily.

What is odd is that despite being the rear valve block, it is accompanied by a small accumulator (the return) rather than the main rear accumulator.

This is what you will see.



Rear main (large) accumulator (2203270115)

This is relatively easy to spot once you know where it is. If you look on the right hand side of the car, at the rear, between the heat sheilds and the exhaust, you will find it hiding up out of the way.



This is what you will see.



Pulsation Dampner (220327215)

Again very easy to find when you know where to look. You need to take the front undertrays off, to reveal the underside of the engine. The pulsation dampner is located just behind the front right hand side wheel, behind it in fact.



This is it:



The plan...

Now that I know where everything is, and have seen how old and crusty everything is (I feel safe to assume all parts have never been replaced), I can resume my plan. I have bought all the accumulators, the pulsation dampner, the block rebuild kits, and some Pentosin to top up. These should all arrive over the next week.

and my plan is now:

- Refurbish the front and rear ABC valve blocks (I purchased two kits for £119.98 from X8R)
- Replace front and rear main accumulators (Part A2203270115 I purchased a pair brand new for £257.32).
- Replace the third accumulator (Part A2203270415 I have purchased new for £154.17).
- Replace the pulsation dampner (Part A2203270215 I purchased one brand new for £114).
- Tope up the fluid after the above, to test (I purchased 1ltr of Pentosin CHF 11S for £15)
- Inspect/clean OR replace the ride height sensors (Part 0105427717 at between £20-50 each - not purchased yet)
- Change the ABC fluid and filter (may get a Mercedes specialist to do this...)

This might be next weekends work, or I might leave it until the following weekend, as I have a week holiday after that so it might be easier. We shall see. I then look forward to putting everything back together, lowering the car back down, and topping the fluid up... then giving it a try!

Mercedes number plates

Since I bought my first W220, I have always hated those special Mercedes number plate surrounds. I know everyone else loves them; but I think they look cheap, and they make the number plate area look fussy and over the top. You can see the broken one at the front in this photo. Most I see have AMG writing all over them, but this one appears to be plane.



So I took pleasure in removing the smashed one on the Mercedes, as well as the hideous alumimium 3D number plate someone had fitted. I prefer a simple glossy finish plate; preferably fixed with no screws (velcro or sticky pads).







I look forward to replacing this with something that suits my tastes better!

 

[c16rkc]

That new Audi

With a million miles on the clock, I was pleased to see that the interior of the new Audi A7 is very good, pretty much unmarked everywhere except for the drivers seat. To my surprise all the buttons seem unworn, and the steering wheel too. A stark contrast to many of the other cars with far less miles, yet worn through buttons on the center console, worn steering wheels, and worn drivers door switch pack. Very strange indeed...

But that drivers seat does have a few issues, and I have no problem with doing a few leather repairs. This is what I was faced with:

Centre section of squab:



Squab sides are worn along the piping, and the beginnings of cracking/crazing.





Side bolster has signs of poor quality previous repair, and wear on piping.





Seat back is a little dirty, with signs of previous poor quality repairs:



I set to work first cleaning the entire seat, with first Mequiars super degreaser and a soft bristled brush. I then used Gliptone leather cleaner and some warm water. then I left to dry.

Sadly I did not taken any photos of this, but it looked so much worse afterwards...!

I have started to re-dye the areas, and I will post some finished photos when it is complete. It is already looking much improved.

 

[c16rkc]

Two reasons for this post:

1) It takes me to 30 posts, and I believe that unlocks some sort of special forum powers; like invisibility, being able to fly, and being able to post rude Navy jokes.
2) To rant about only having a few hours to make sure there are no spelling mistakes in any of my posts, before they are locked and can't be edited. Why do some forums do this? Why not give us a few days, or maybe even forever? Why lock our posts?

 

[Marcjml]

Great read

 

[L80OUS]

Keep them coming alway enjoy your write ups

 

[suty455]

Awesome hope the younf fellas doing ok and gets the all clear

 

[c16rkc]

Lindsey's new car is Evil

The new Audi A7 is very menacing sitting in the garage. I can see they took some inspiration from the R8 in the design, and it looks a bit like someone stretched the R8 out and added rear doors and a boot. That makes it slightly awkward looking from some angles, and I certainly don't think it has either the sleek lines of the Audi R8, or the purposeful look of the Audi A8. It sort of manages to achieve nether of these things, but still looks like a nice car. I suppose it is a design compromise between the two in some ways.

I think it looks like something slightly evil, perhaps a super villains car.

Anyway, it was also peppered with stone chips on the front, obviously from high speed getaways by previous super villain owners.

So I thoroughly cleaned the bonnet, wiped it over with alcohol wipes, and then applied some touch in paint. After drying, I went over some chips 3 times to make sure the paint was proud of the original paintwork.

Then last week I used 2500 grit wet and dry paper to work them down to the same level as the paint. Few of them were perfect, and some really could have done with more touch up paint, but it looked good enough to hide the chips at a glance.







I used my rotary polisher, and Meguiars Ultimate compound to polish these up. I did just a few to test it and they looked pretty good. Then last Tuesday when I was working on the Mercedes, Lindsey surprised me by giving it a go and did lots more of the work.

I finished the last few on Sunday, and it looks pretty good now. I just need to repeat it with the front bumper.







Some may also notice a puddle of water by the wall of the garage - it looks like it is from the garage door, but it is actually not (thought some water does come in under the door too). to my annoyance both side windows leak slightly. I can see what it is and I can fix it, but it is rather annoying to discover this, particularly as its been caused by the garage builder doing something silly. But I won't go into that now... other priorities.

I also cleaned up the Audi floor mats in the bath, and all the staining came out. Sadly I forgot to take any after photos.





At the age of 41, I am learning my ABC again

By this I mean Mercedes ABC - Active Body Control. Yes I attacked my saggy suspension issues last Tuesday. Aston could not really help with this; too dangerous, but he was in the general area under Mummy's supervision.



I had the whole day off work, and enlisted the help of Lindsey's brother, Adrian, too. He is probably four times stronger than me, and was a great help on all those tight ABC hose nuts.



By the time he arrived, I had already disconnected most of the hoses on the front ABC block. Sadly the last connection just would not budge.

Adrian used the full force of his muscles on the offending nut, but sadly he only succeeded in rounding it off. So I decided to see if there was somewhere else further down the hose that I could disconnect it, and Adrian moved on to the rear block.



After lots of struggling at the front, I finally found that the front block was not really serviceable at all, because one of the valves was rusted into place. This may also be why the last hose cannot be removed.



With a heavy heart I decided the best thing was to replace the entire hose, and buy a new "used" valve block. Both parts are ordered and on their way for a future installment.



So in the mean time, Adrian fully removed the rear block, and I took it apart, cleaned it thoroughly, and used the X8R kit to replace all the seals. It is a wonderful kit and has everything you need, even the plastic X spacers that inevitably break during removal.

I took no during photos, mainly because my hands were covered in oil... but also because I forgot....!



Adrian replaced the rear block for me, and also fitted the replacement small "return" accumulator at the same time, so at least that's two things done!

We did not bother to take a look at the rear accumulator (under the exhaust at the rear), as the parts had not arrived yet. But we did take a look at removing the pulsation dampner.



Adrian used the full might of his muscles once again, but this was jammed on incredibly tight. No amount of WD40 was going to release it. When I came to look myself, I found that once again Adrian's immense strength had completely worn the nut on the end of the pulsation dampner round!

By this time I was ready to throw the towel in for the day, I had been at it for 8 hours. So this will be a project for another day. I think I'll need to remove the whole pulsation dampner assembly from the car by releasing the lines instead. I can then hopefully put it in a vice (cushioned with bits of wood) and get it released. I will also have to order some of the "plusgas" that Alexander recommended, and which I forgot to order before this work.

In the mean time, my main accumulators have arrived, so as soon as my new front block and line has arrived, I can have another go. I think the pulsation dampner will be my only major issue now.

So this is how my ABC suspension "to do" list currently looks:

- Replace rusty front ABC valve block, and main front hose (Used parts on order which cost £71.66 hose, and £108.10 block)
- Refurbish the rear ABC valve block (DONE WITH KIT FROM X8R)
- Replace front and rear main accumulators (Part A2203270115 I purchased a pair brand new for £257.32).
- Replace the third (smaller) return accumulator (Part A2203270415 bought for £154.17 and fitted).
- Replace the pulsation dampner (Part A2203270215 I purchased one brand new for £114).
- Tope up the fluid after the above, to test (I purchased 1ltr of Pentosin CHF 11S for £15)
- Inspect/clean OR replace the ride height sensors (Part 0105427717 at between £20-50 each - not purchased yet)
- Change the ABC fluid and filter (may get a Mercedes specialist to do this...)

Shedding some light on the situation

What do they say about idle thumbs, and the devils work? Well I did one more thing....

I completely removed the front bumper, and also one headlight. I am aiming to thoroughly clean the headlights and polish them back to a showroom finish.



So with no front bumper, and a missing headlight, the poor Mercedes looks even more sorry for itself now...



That's all folks... hope to do more soon!