**My CL500 W215 Project Complete**

[Sam87]

Hello everyone

Since I bought my Vito V6 that I modded I seem to be looking at Mercedes more and more .

I wanted a V8 Mercedes as a toy and some of you have seen that I've been after an E55AMG W211 Designo Model for some time but it's near impossible to find one that I like!

I heard about this car through a friend of mine and went to see it. The lady had the car since it was 1 year old [14 years in total] and even though it was a car that she didn't use much, only 63k on the clock, the car wasn't looked after so much cosmetically, badly washed, lots of swirls on the paint, scratched wheels and a dirty interior. The body work needed some attention but the engine was very smooth. The deal was done and the car was mine. I drove the car to my work place and the project began. I thought I would have been happy with the CL500 and just forget about the E55AMG but I was still checking every day for E55AMG and what didn't help was the fact that I drove an E55AMG last month and that made me want one even more, so after spending so much time, effort and money on the CL500 I actually put the car for sale .
The car was collected yesterday and the new owner was very happy. Even though the car is not mine anymore I thought i'd still post some pic's to show what I done to it.

I hope you like it!

Here are some before pic's



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Started with the cleaning the underneath to prepare for painting later on







Shiny seats ....

 

[Sam87]

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Passenger seat out to fix the wiring as it would say lock seat once engine was running, I hope no one has to do this to their CL as its such a pain to get to the wires, I had to take the whole seat apart to get to the wires




This is the dirt from one seat only

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Engine bay finished

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After a wash, nearly ready for painting







Now the process of detailing the car and all the painting of all the components underneath the car





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[Sam87]

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[Sam87]

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[renault12ts]

How does a lady get a car so dirty?

 

[Sam87]

Even though the E55AMG has not been found ''yet'' I bought two other projects

An S600 V12 Twin Turbo .... One pic for now but a thread will be created for thi car

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Project number 2

Another e46 m3.... I bought this car to do up and drive it as the other m3 I have never gets used and I feel like I have an m3 but I don't at the same time as its done something like 200 miles in over 2 years..... I know its a shame to not drive the car but theres not many e46 m3s out there now with under 30k on the clock

It looked nothing like this but this is where I am at the moment, Lowered on coilovers, 20mm spacers at the front ans 12mm at the rear and a new set of polished wheels.... Paint looks good in pic but it's shocking, crazy amount of swirls.... The interior is in pieces too as that's having a deep clean, new steering wheel and all the trims painted gloss black



The underneath is done too



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[Sam87]

How does a lady get a car so dirty?

I know! She had lots of money too but I guess some people don't care so much about scratched wheels and swirls on the paint and scratches on bumpers as they think oh what's the point, its going to get scratched again!

 

[Flyinspanner]

I think the shape of the W215merc is absolutely glorious - I may be biased

 

[renault12ts]

^+1

 

[BaldGuy]

What you do to cars is amazing..... the labour you put into each one.... a huge credit to you... I'd buy a car from you with my eyes shut!

 

[Sam87]

What you do to cars is amazing..... the labour you put into each one.... a huge credit to you... I'd buy a car from you with my eyes shut!

Thank you very much for your kind comment, really appreciate that!

 

[merc85]

How do you paint the suspension and diff etc? do you remove it? the cars looks great

 

[Sam87]

How do you paint the suspension and diff etc? do you remove it? the cars looks great

Thank you!
After all the cleaning, once everything is dry I see if any components need sanding down, once that's all done, I use a primer first on the components and then I paint them one by one without removing them. I cover everything else and just leave the part that I want to paint. Once dry go to the next and the next! It's a long process, the M3 took about 25 hours in total, the Mercedes took a bit longer but I didn't count the hours. Im not a very patient guy but when it comes to my cars I don't know where I get the patients from

 

[BaldGuy]

You should set a business up for this, if you havn't already.... I'm sure you'd be overrun with people wanting this...

 

[merc85]

You should set a business up for this, if you havn't already.... I'm sure you'd be overrun with people wanting this...

If they would be prepared to pay the the Gents time, Thanks Sam87 pretty much how i do it too, but there is only so much you can do without disassemble, Then that could be a can of worm, as you say its a long process Well done Sir cracking vehicles

 

[Sam87]

You should set a business up for this, if you havn't already.... I'm sure you'd be overrun with people wanting this...

Funny you said that! I've been thinking of doing this and that was the main reason why I bought my vito but I had other things going on and the idea was put back but it's something I'd like to give a go.

 

[Sam87]

If they would be prepared to pay the the Gents time, Thanks Sam87 pretty much how i do it too,as you say its a long process Well done Sir cracking vehicles

Thank you!
That's the thing, sometimes I wonder if there are people out there that would pay for such a job as it is very time consuming.
Ah ok, you do the same, it's nice to see I'm not the only one that has OCD lol

 

[alabbasi]

Nice work. I dig the tips. I have to do this on my S55, they're black and sooty. You'd think it was a w123 diesel.

 

[Sam87]

Thank you!
I guess they all get like that after a while, I used wet and dry to get all the dirt off as it was stuck and then I polished them with the machine.... 2 small pieces but they took some time to get them clean!

 

[Duff3103]

wow, good job keep the posts coming