Saaboteur

Last weekend, I flushed the coolant and R&R'd nearly all of the hoses. I overlooked buying one of the transmission cooling lines (leading to the trans oil cooler) and also missed a very small hose near the firewall. I did all the other major ones though.

Getting at the ones leading inside the car, to the heater core, were a bit of a pain. To get at those, I removed the wiper mechanism and the 'water collector', the plastic shell directly in front of the windshield.Not 100% sure if that was all necessary, but it seemed so to me, and it definitely made accessing them easier. Might have been able to get away with just removing the centre portion of the firewall, but ah well.

All went back together but as I was moving the car around yesterday, I noticed a puddle of coolant on the garage floor. Turns out the hose leading from the driver's side head was leaking, the hose wasn't on tight enough. Fixed that, and then started on the plugs.

I have to say, the most difficult part of the spark plug R&R was getting the wires off! What a pain! Next time I will fabricate up my own replica Hazet tool to make that easier, I already bought the 17mm bent wrench which i will cut down for it. The only really difficult ones were the three plugs on each head near the firewall. Everything else was pretty easy.

I did manage to destroy two of the plugs just getting the wires off, and also killed one of the wires too. Amazingly, on a Sunday, I managed to locate a set of wires in stock at a local parts shop. not cheap at $290, but I didn't want to be without the car too long. But to my luck, when I arrived at the shop, it turned out that one of the local S2000 guys was working there, so I got the wires for $200 instead! Now all's good.

As an aside, I have also ordered the supercharger kit for my S2000 - Tom Chu (formerly Tunerplayground) on this forum won't be too happy, as I didn't get the Kraftwerks kit, but went with the Science of Speed kit. Next up, I will start working on the wife for the greenlight on a 55 swap for the C43...

MarcusF

I used a Sears spark plug pulling tool. They're about $25.

I never had to buy any, but a set of Bosch ignition wires for a CLK430 (and they ought to be the same for a C43) are part number 09850 ($175 @ www.rockauto.com).

Saaboteur

I ended up picking up a similar tool from Princess Auto for $10, but the prongs aren't as curved. It worked fine getting the boots off the coil, but I think it might be a bit tight to get the boots off the plugs themselves.

The wires I got were by NGK. Works fine, can't complain! All wires were labeled by cylinder, plus 'A' and 'B'. Made for an easy install. A local NAPA outlet had nothing in stock, but if they did, they were listed at $800. Sheesh!

ob1kenobi

Saaboteur: if you still have the carlssons by the time I go and visit my mom
in Edmonton sometime in late spring, I'll buy them off you. However I'm
very curious if they will fit a w210 E55 without any issues. I was just there
and didn't notice your for sale sig.

thanks

Saaboteur

Just send me cash and I'll drop them off at your mom's house!

ob1kenobi

not a house.
She lives in an assisted facility in the West end area close to WEM.