Hello everyone,
i've been on mbworld for some time now, but was more active on the W211 subforum. However i got a W203 (again) last June and thought i'd take you on the journey i've been on with this car. My first car that i bought was a W203 C220 with OM611 in 2017. I had the car for about 8 months and then replaced it with a W211 E220, which i still drive. In 2019 i wanted a sportier car and got a 2002 C32 AMG. I told myself, i'd never sell the car (it was in pristine condition) but a year later i sold it again, because i wanted a 8 cylinder car. I got a E55 in 2020 then, which i still have, allthough it's sitting unregistered in the garage. Meanwhile i also got a C219 CLS500 as a daily in 2022. It was quite a nice car, which i really liked, but earlier this year i kind of realised i wanted a smaller car, which is a bit more agile in corners, so i spontaniously sold it and started looking for a C55. In May a C55 popped up in my search feed, which i disregarded, because it had an accident damage, high mileage and was too expensive. However iver next few days the seller reduced the price quite a bit and i got interested. Long story short i got the car on June 7th and drove it to my work place that weekend. The 500km journey home was adventureous, the brakes felt really bad, car was making all kind of sounds and the tires felt dead. Me and the car survived the the trip though and ever since then i have been fixing up this car, giving it a second life. I'm still nowhere near finished, but i've made some good progress, which i wanted to share with you guys. Here is how i picked it up.

Things wrong :

-Front right is all crooked, headlight housing was cracked too
-AC not working
-CEL on
-Seat controls not working properly
-Secondary cats missing
-Resonator and mufflers empty
-Subframe corroded
-Axle boot torn
-All undertrays missing
-Suspension dead
-Chinese tires with no grip
-Some rust

Issues wrong i found later down the road:
-Front wiring harness was a mess
-Intake manifold was all lose
-All hoses on the vaccum system were brittle
-Side skirt had a hilarious fix
-Fenders were wrong
-Some rodent had left his marks here and there

 

 

how did the engine feel? did it still feel "relatively" healthy considering its age and outer condition?

 

Here a few pics of my restauration progress. I got new electrical connectors and connected them properly to sort the electrical wiring mess.To sort out the front mask, i got a used CLK front mask and sandblasted it and painted it black. It looks quite nice and a bit more modern in black now. Rebuilding the intake was messy, due to the mileage there was some oil and dirt in it. i toroughly cleaned everything and glued it back together. While at it, i replaced the vacuum hose in the intake and all the other hoses in that area and also replaced some other small things, i found to be broken.

 

Side skirt had a creative fix. Some genius just worked in a license plate. Another part, i'll have to replace. Also got two new fenders, cause the old ones were broken.
I got a second hand headlight, since one had a broken housing. I then sanded them down and got some clearcoat on them. They look like new now

 

Now comes the interesting stuff... I decided to adress the issues in the rear. Since everything was worn on the rear i decided to get some modifications done. A friend of my parted out his C55 project and i got his rear subframe with LSD, which was freshly rebuilt. Ideally i would have just removed my rear subframe and swapped in the new one, but i decided to dismantle the whole thing and replace all the bushings with strongflex bushings. So i dismantled the whole thing, put it back together will all fresh parts. I had previously got a pair of axles, which i rebuilt with my friend. I pressed out all the bushings on my control arms and installed the strongflex bushings. For the subframe i got alumium subframe bushings made, which i installed. Since the stock brakes on the C55 are tiny, i got a pair of CLK63 brakes. Here's some subframe ****.

 

Last month i "quickly" wanted to swap the rear axle. However things escalated and i spent a whole week de rusting my chassis after removing the old subframe. Typical W203 problems. But i want to do everything once and be done with it. My process was, remove the rust mechanically, put 2K base coat on it, then sprayable sealant, then paint and then cavity wax.

 

Everything fresh and new including H&R Monotube coilovers and H&R Sway bar

 

Same process on the fronts

 

Currently i'm in the process of doing the rear fenders. I've cut the inner wheel housing and will fully fold the outer wheel arch and seal everything up, so it won't rust in the future

 

Didn't feel too bad honestly

 

Loved looking at all the pictures man. I have a 145k mile car that these pictures made me feel a lot better about! But seriously, thanks for posting these. If you have more pictures / progress to post, please do.

 

I'm pretty much non stop working on this car, so here's a few updates. I finished up the problematic rear fender area. What we did was, we cut the old rotten inner wheel arch out, cleaned everything up and then sealed it up with chassis structure glue (Dupont Betamate 2098L) and then folded the fender over completely. This way there should be way for water and oxygen to rear the once rusty area and it shouldn't corrode in the future. Yesterday i did some preparation to empty the engine bay. I disconnected the electrical wiring, hoses etc. of the front mask. Since our shop is closed during the holidays i hope to take off the front mask on Friday and then proceed with pulling the whole front subframe and engine.

 

The last 6 months summarized in 5 minutes

 

Love to se it. Btw you are brave for taking apart the intake manifold.

 

My Motto has been "just do it" with this project. So far everything has somehow worked out. Also it's really satisfying, if you can repair stuff, instead of just replacing it.

 

Great job!

 

Not sure how many have seen a naked W203, but here you go

 

Amazing!! Whats the plan for this car? Just a restoration or you gonna mod it as well?

 

Sorry, saw your question only just now.
I'm restoring this car at the moment, but am replacing parts with modifications too. Brakes, suspension, suspension bushings, diff, sway bars, brake lines and hoses are all upgraded.

 

The last couple of days i removed the sunroof and today we glued, riveted and spot welded in the new roof without sunroof. Here's some pics of the progress.

 

Such an amazing build/restore, this project truly is the inspiration for mine. I’ve wanted to do exactly this for at least 3 years and it’s great to see someone doing it and saving another one of these, someday mine will undergo the same process!

 

Thanks man! That reminds me, I should probably post some updates. The chassis is pretty much done now and I'm waiting for our painters to spray the car now. In the meantime I started rebuilding the front axle knuckles and control arms. I've decided to go with the W204 C63 ones, since they have a stronger wheel bearing and I can mount C63 brakes.

 

Interesting. How did you figure out those are compatible? SLK55 six pot brakes are a direct bolt on to stock c55.

 

Some guys in Germany have already tried it. The offset is about 15mm more each side. The C63 brake disc is noticably thicker than the SLK or CLK63 rotor and can handle way more heat.