C200k W204

I was going through other sections of this forum, and we are lacking how to do on our section. This thread is for those of you that do your own work on the car. I am not the best one but I do have quite a bit of knowledge to share with you guys. Let it begin!!!

C200k W204

I see that many of you are doing blacked out grill and leaving the chrome pieces for the sport models. Here is a brief DIY on blacking out your grill.

Tools needed: 10mm socket with wretchet
Flat head screw driver
Spraycan paint (mostly use black, but choose your color) and
Clearcoat spray paint (If you choose to leave flat color, no shine
then skip the clearcoat)
3M scrubbing pad (or mild coarse sandpaper 800grit ) some
alcohol

Time taken: This depends on how well you can spray yourself. If done well, it
it can be done within half day.

__________________________________________________ _________________

1st: open the hood, and take a good at the pieces that are connected to the grill.
-turn 90 degrees on the center plastic piece thats right behind the grill
-pull out little plastic tab (Use flathead screw driver), slide in between the small circle piece and the bigger bottom circle and twist, you can easily remove these. They are holding the intake chamber to the big plastic piece
when taking the big plastic cover behind the grill, take a look at plastic piece, and its held by L shaped plastic pieces which are holding onto the radiator structure. It's self explanatory, I suck at explaning.

2:

you will see this sitting there with 2x10mm bolts, remove them, little bit of twist required to remove it from the grill.

3:Now time to pull out the grill, it is not held by anything on top at this point.
put your hands behind and lower part of the grill. Gently push on the lower part of the grill from the front of the car. Pull with the other hand while doing so. The grill is held on by these on the bumper

you are separating the grill from those pieces which is not very difficult.

When the grill is apart from the bumper, carefully pull them upward

4: NOW THE FUN PART!!!!
Remove chrome bits. Star is the easiest. There are three parts that are stick out, one being bigger than the other two. widen the gap to let the two free from the grill



Remove the 5 pieces of the chrome bars. Be very careful not to break the chrome plastic pieces. Place the grill on a soft area (anything that would not scratch the chrome) Using flathead screw driver, stick it in between the chrome and black part of the grill. do not put force on the chrome bits.

DOH, its quite blurry, but as you see, the far right chrome doesnt do anything. you can see the black part and the chrome part next to it. Repeat this on all. be patient

one of the chrome bar removed.

5. When you are done removing the chrome bits, you will notice there are two small black plastic bars. I didn't bother to remove them. Once you decide your mind, go ahead and use the 3M scrubbing pad(use the red one) or 800 grit sand paper. Do it in circular motion, this will help the paint to stick on there better. clean with alcohol and dry it. Get rid of all lints and dust

6. follow instructions on the paint can. Now paint light but many layers. Do not let it drip, it is going to be a trying to fix it. If that happens, pm me.
Get them in the light, and make sure its all sprayed evenly.

7. Clear coat is the hardest part. Spraycans tend to spray too much at each squizze. Do it light, yet enough. Spray it so that you can barely see orange peel. The paint will settle as it dries. If it looks flaky, then spray some more when they are dry. DONT LET IT DRIP!!!!



should look like this when done

Make sure the paint is all well dried up, start putting back the chrome bars and star. Be very careful not to scratch the new paint.

8. When reinstalling the chromes, make sure the plastic tabs on the back of the grill that holds the chromes are clicked in. Most cases, it wont, use the flat head to force it into place.

9. Line up the star, top first, and pop them in.

10. Back on the bumper, line up the two circular sections on top of the bumper.



when sliding the bottom of the grill into this area, be very careful. Use enough hand force to pop them back in. (Make sure the circular bits are at its place)

11. reinstall everything back into its place and you are done. Sit back and enjoy

Derspeed

Ron Jr

Looks good Jacob. This is a mod I am still debating about doing.

C200k W204

I know, this one was my first try, and I know it sucks. I will do my best on the next one.

Thanks Ron

btw, next will be, how to change out lowering springs.

C300Man

thanks that looks great. How about DIY oil change?

C200k W204

bit too easy, but oh hell, I will do one when I get my springs installed

myinternetsucks

what kinda paint did you use? model car paint is what i heard to use, what do you think?

trial0r

sticky.

C200k W204

they all work well, but just remember to spray enough coats of clear, they prevent the paint from chipping. another way to do is getting protective film, however it might have visible cut off lines. This is temporary for me, since i am doing something special for my car

Carsy

Thanks Jacob. Useful info on removing the grill. I have filed it away.Keep up the good work. This forum needs more of this. John

Derspeed

I wasn't saying it sucks. I did a very similar thread. It seems as if W204 DIYs are being passed by and not stickied.

https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...098&highlight=

Now...if you're a sponsor selling a hood star...

micropower99

Yea I don't get why the hood star was stickied. I did although ask a mod to sticky the official parts numbers thread. We should add durspeed's version to this thread and flameg's DIY for the C63 to this thread as well and then have this thread stickied.

C200k W204

I will ask the mod to sticky this and also how do we merge those two threads into this one? Any idea?

Thank god, I still think it sucked. Well I stumbled on a set of Eibach prokit today. So I will be installing those tomorrow, take a break from work just to install my new parts Will post one as soon as I am done tomorrow.

Sanjuro Makabe

on a similar note, I called up this body shop and they quoted me $135 for painting grills (baked dry in a few hours), they claim they use and can match Mercedes body paint...(using paint code of course), anyone know if this is worth it? and do you think I should go as far as asking them to prove if they are really using MB paint?

anyone?

Ron Jr

I was qouted 400.00 for my grill to be painted. But that included removal, taking the chrome off, prep and paint, reinstalling chrome and reinstalling grill. Seemd a bit much to me your is much more reasonable.

Sanjuro Makabe

my price doesn't include removing grill, removing strips, etc...

coz I said I can do those myself easily, so straight paint/bake dry, color matching is $135

I guess so, but some of my friends are saying thats too low for official MB paint...my question is, even if this isn't MB paint, assuming they just match it using other paint, is it still worth it?

Ron Jr

As long as you have the paint code it should match. The paints are most likely all made by the same company anyway.

Derspeed

Cool. I just got my Eibachs yesterday.

C200k W204

As promised, I have done my installation on the lowering springs. I chose Eibach prokit because I had nothing but good from my previous cars with prokit.

It can be done easily if you have access to a lift and some tools to go with. If done at home, it can be a lot of work, but its doable.

Tools needed: Lift(real + for cutting time), Impact gun, torx sockets(set), metric sockets(set), extensions, star sockets(don't know the name of it), flat head screw driver, needle nose, allen key small enough to fit in one piece(see below), wretchet, spring compressor etc Access to a shop should take care of all the tools you need.

If you have no knowledge on how to work on a car, it can be difficult, yet it still is doable. Do this at your own risk, suspension is something that you don't want to mess up on any car.

Directions (Rear then front)

1. Take off all wheels after its on jackstands or on a lift.


2. After you have done the step above, you will see the following (bolt for the rear lower arm, bolt that holds shock, bolt that holds stabilizer link)


I first tried to remove all bolts thats connected here in this picture

I found it easier to remove the biggest bolt out of these four, which is the located at inner most towards the center of the car. When removing, use a jack to support the arm. when done, slowly lower the jack and you will get easy access to remove the spring itself.

the far left bolt is easier to work with, do not remove other bolts like I did at first. As the spring doesn't seat well when tried to put it back into its place.
After you remove the stock spring, you will see a rubber boot where the top of the spring gets seated. Remove it with thin flathead screw driver, lube it, then seat it on top of your new spring. Lower part of the spring gets seated also, so make sure they line up as they are suppose to.
3. Do same on both sides. One thing to remember is make sure the springs seat well on their spot. Top must align which is done easily with the rubber piece when seated already on the spring before it goes back on.

4.Fronts, I found it easier to do fronts than the rear, since I started off wrong with one side by removing more bolts than I should've.


5. Three bolts needs to be removed, as well as one nut that holds the stabilizer link. Also there is plastic piece that slides into the shock assembly which needs to be taken out.

this is the biggest one, i believe 21mm and torx I forgot which size.

Above is the picture of the plastic piece that slides onto the shock body(rounded) I think i have a clearer picture.

That plastic round piece in the middle of the picture is the above mentioned plastic. It holds brake lines and some wiring.

6. The two smaller bolts are bolted below the shock body also torx bolt

You see whre they get mounted. Right above the two empty holes, you can again see the round plastic that goes into the shock body. Also there is a ziptie that's holding the plastic piece, cut it to get it free.

I found it easier to remove the stabilizer link first. you need T40 star shaped one and 18mm wrench.

impact gun did not let the nut free since those joints are ball joint.

7. Remove the top three bolts in engine bay

After you have done that, hold the shock assembly, and with one hand, use a flat head screw driver to push in the black plastic pieces on each side.





8. Now that you have the shock assembly free from the car, do the other side, this saves time changing out the springs at the same time, no need to come back to removing assembly on the other side.

9.To get access to the nut on top of the shock, you need to remove the plastic cover. slide a thin anything metal which is hard enough, into the holes on the side of the plastic cover



10. Compress the spring with spring compressor, which I believe can be rented at local auto part store, ie. advanced auto parts etc



11. Reinstall the new spring, align it on the bottom, and make sure top rubber is facing the right way. Which is factory marked with white lines. Top metal spins free, so don't worry about its location at this moment. Tighten the nut tight with impact gun. Remember to put the plastic cap back on.

12. Reinstalling the shock assembly. First I hand tighten the three bolts on top. Then I installed the plastic round piece to the shock body


use new ziptie to replace the factory ziptie which was cut earlier. Pull it with enough force, should slide right out.

13.Reinstall the stabilizer link, hand tighten for now.
(tip, use a wrench and the star socket thing and use them both to tighten them)

14.Reinstall the biggest bolt, hand tighten

15.Reinstall the smaller two bolts

16. tighten them all with whatever tool you have, make sure they are tight.

17. Put wheels back on and you are good to go for a test drive. If you hear anything abnormal, turn back and double check everything.



eye candy anyone? there were more exotic cars there but DB9 was one car that I haven't seen in person.


Doesn't seem low on the picture above, but when I got home, it seemed a bit lower than the above. I believe they will settle in within a week or two.

Get alignment done after the springs settle in

Thanks for reading this long procedure on how to change out springs. If any question, PM me or post here. Thanks

C200k W204

btw, I have asked one of the mod to sticky this thread. Nothing has happened. Can anyone help me out here?

Azn_C300

mod please sticky this

Derspeed

Doesn't seem low on the picture above, but when I got home, it seemed a bit lower than the above. I believe they will settle in within a week or two.

I think that is right where it needs to be. Nice.

narky

It might be just me, but wouldn't it be more helpful to everyone on the forum if each DIY project had a separate thread and stickied at the top? Of course, that would require a cooperative moderator who'd sticky each thread... but it'd make individual projects/instructions much easier to find.

That's just a small dream of mine.

Derspeed

That's how it's done at Passatworld.