I had a brilliant idea and bought an ML320, now I need to clean it, many, many times.

[Blobsta]

I was right about boot space in the Mini & CLK. I'm not convinced all of this was necessary! Perhaps I should have bought a GL rather than ML for this job... Either way, they went and it performed perfectly. Really pleased it came with the factory cargo net, light stuff or not, you don't want it coming through.

Festival Wagon for the win!

 

[mioba]

AWESOME - so the question is, is the car a keeper....

 

[Blobsta]

AWESOME - so the question is, is the car a keeper....

I have no idea. Claire wants to keep it for the remainder of the summer holidays as its ideal for putting the kids and all their stuff in, her sister is arriving with my niece by train today to stay with her mum for a few days so it's perfect for that while I'm at work, longer term though I really don't know. It's pretty easy to live with and actually quite fun an novel to drive around in, I like the basic nature of it inside and you can easily justify it's faults by classing them as "character". I was fairly serious about an R129 for myself but having looked at a C43 (S202) I am swaying more towards that and so there is an element of practicality there already. One of my neighbours was was sat in it last night and when I told him he could have it for what it owes me he suddenly became very interested, I really should have got him on a test drive

Between the rain storms on Saturday I fitted a reversing camera to it and then last night gave it its first wash in my ownership. 4 weeks is something of a record for me between washes let alone the fact that I hadn't done this one at all since the purchase. No paint correction, clay, fallout remover or wax of any kind; just a 2 bucket wash and rinse with filtered water.

 

[grum71]

As we say up North..."Dicky Minter" is that.
Fantastic work - well worth all the effort

 

[Blobsta]

Another day, another bit done.

I need to do something with he headlights on this car as I am used to much better these days. I've polished up the lenses and they came up ok but they'll always be halogen bulbs so I'm investigating the projector route from the facelift models. As much as I like the stock old-school nature of the original lamps there's nothing (legal or socially acceptable) that can be done with them. I've bought a used facelift lamp and cleaned it up, I have an H7 LED bulb set that I've fitted in this now so I can test the beam pattern and of course the fit on the car. I'll probably go with HID for these if all is ok as the LED lamps will probably produce spots on the back of the projector but we'll see.

The lamp itself cleaned up ok, I feel the amber bulb may have to be replaced with one of those chrome indicator bulbs though, it's a bit stark now!

 

[TeddyRuxpin]

Nice! Did you do it by hand or using a machine? And did you seal them after sanding - what did you use to keep them lovely and clear?

 

[Smart320]

Nice! Did you do it by hand or using a machine? And did you seal them after sanding - what did you use to keep them lovely and clear?

Am also interested in the answer , my wife’s Rav has yellowing headlights so I need to tackle them too!

 

[mercmancdi]

You have done a great job and the longer you have it you might realise it was a good buy for your Job.
my problem is if I buy one needing sorting then when sorted I sell it as I am bored then someone else gets a
well sorted vehicle lol.
I personally prefer the ml to the gl don’t know why / been to buy 2 gl and walked away I never got the right feeling I expect from m b
Maybe it’s just me.

 

[Blobsta]

Am also interested in the answer , my wife’s Rav has yellowing headlights so I need to tackle them too!

One of the best "off the shelf" kits I've found is the Autoglym one, I just use my cordless drill, it's a Makita but any decent one will do the job as you need a reasonable amount of time to achieve good results. The AG kit has waaaay too much polish in there for the amount of discs you get so I have just been topping up my stock of 3" sanding discs over time, recently I bought some assortment sets on eBay which go up to 4000 grit but I don't think they are any better than the trizact ones in the kit. What's that old adage? Buy cheap, buy twi...

Here's the kit, Headlight Restoration Complete Kit shop around for a good price but for what you get, £28 is worth it as you'll be able to do several sets with some top up discs.

I don't bother to seal them with anything other than a wax polish. Some people lacquer them I understand but I feel that you need a flawless finish and when you've polished them that much, what will the lacquer key to? I'd rather just buff them with the pad and some of the polish every few months personally. The lens is thick, you'll never go through it like you would paint.

One update on this would be that I have both headlights now and have fitted an HID kit to the projectors. I knew that fitting these lamps would cause me to lose the fog (or W**ker) lights from the front of the car but that's no loss to me however, I wasn't prepared for Mercedes to use the same plugs but wire the headlights differently internally. That was a bit of fun to work out!

I haven't been out in the dark properly yet though as I found a split CV gaiter on Sunday so I'm not driving it until that is fixed as the mess will be horrific!

Here's a test that I did in the garden to ensure the beam pattern was ok and had a nice sharp cut off line. It does of course, they're projectors. .

 

[Smart320]

Thanks for that information, will get around to doing the lights on the Rav soon, assuming it passes the MOT on Monday next

 

[Alex225]

Great job there OP, it's gone from looking like an average car of it's era to looking like a really cherished example, which is basically what it is now!

I actually bought something similar in the form of a Mitsubishi Shogun Sport which I plan to get off road in when I get time but I couldn't help tidying it up. Haven't gone so far as to wet vac the carpets but it certainly looks a lot tidier than when I starter.