calboy

I finally installed my door sills and since there weren't any instructions for the 209 or pictures of these sills I thought I'd share my experience. Also, I ran into some trouble with my keyless go so maybe someone can help. Anyways, these are the illuminated sills from Jerry at www.formymercedes.com . They looked very nice when they arrived with the back completely sealed in 3M adhesive. I was hoping to be able to change the pads or wording but this would make it more difficult. I did manage to get the carlsson label off and my next mod will be to change this to a custom replaceable graphic. I was a little disappointed at the fitment though. I thought it would fit neatly into the cutout on top of the brushed metal oval part but instead it is slightly bigger so it overlaps the edges so that it is not flush with the surface. It sticks out about 0.1 inches and looks like it is just stuck on but once it was installed, it is difficult to notice from above. You'll see in the pics later. So here are the instructions:

Step 1. Pull off upper sill, just pull up on it and it should come off, then pull off the rubber trim starting in the middle and all the way to the door switch.

Step 2. Pull the bottom sill out by tugging towards you and up. This may require a little pulling as their is a plastic pin on the edge that holds it in.

calboy

3. A hole needs to be drilled in the original sill for the power cable to come out.

calboy

The new sill is a little bigger than the old one as you can see in the picture. I thought of perhaps removing the back piece and putting it under the gray plastic frame in place of the current metal piece, but the back piece is heat glued and even if it was removed, the sill is too big so I assume it goes on top.

calboy

4. Lift the rug under the footwell to expose the wire piping and open this up. Splice the red cable to the 12 V power. I chose the red wire with a white stripe. I tried to find the door switch ground in this nest of wires but finally gave up and realized I could expose the wires behind the switch directly. The door switch wire is brown with a gray stripe. The two brown/gray wires in the footwell were constantly ground so I guess those are not it. I spliced the red/black wire from the kit directly to the brown/grey one. This was easy to do once the connector was popped out.

calboy

5. If you unplugged the connector for the door switch be sure to unlock your doors with the remote before you plug it back in or your neighbors will think you stole the car. Connect up the light and push in the door switch to check that they light up and turn off.
6. Tidy up the wiring and stuff the inverter unit into the black wire housing. I was too lazy to drill any holes so the wires just go between the frame and the upper sill.
7. Put everything back the way you found it.

calboy

Here is the finished product. I think it looks pretty nice, a lot better than expected. The whole thing took me 3 hours but if I knew what I know now it would have taken me under an hour.

Unfortunately, my keyless go is not working anymore for some reason. It keeps saying key undetected. I have a feeling, while I was tugging around and probing the wires in the footwell to find the darn switched ground, I might have disconnected something or burnt a fuse? Any ideas? Please help. I will try to go back in there to see if I can find anything but I hope it is an easy fix. If anyone has a suggestion on a repair shop or someone who could take a look at it let me know. I am afraid the dealer will just replace the whole system to fix it when it may be a loose connection somewhere.

BrabusClK04

wow, thats nice, i think I want one now...

x-tian-230k

Looks really nice...i did this mod on my class and plan on doing it for my CLK.... Good work.

cracker123

good job. looks pretty good.

Co 55 AMG

Great post! Looks Premo

rrlucero

Your sills look very nice! I made the mistake of ordering my CLK 500 cab sills from the dealer and having them installed after I took ownership of my car last year - BIG MISTAKE!

Not only did the sills fall OFF while I was in the parking lot of the dealership, but then they charged me $1,500 for the complete job. I do admit they look nice now, but what a pain to go thru all of that. I would have liked the option of choosing something other than "CLK" and the illuminated blue back light, but they do look pretty at night (ya, I'm a girl, I like pretty things :p )

x-tian-230k

1500.00 DOLLARS??? What were you thinking???? You do you a NICE vehicle tho....gotta admit that!

Harris

For everybody's info: we do offer custom-made illuminated door sills for the W209. You can put whatever lettering on it. We utilize the stock door sills and modify on it. There is no taping or drilling involved. All you need to do is to take out your stock sills and replaced with the custom-made ones. Sorry for the poor picture quality, but here are a couple of pics of the CLK sills:

calboy

Those look very nice Harris, I looked for a picture of your 209 offering previously but couldn't find one except maybe in the dark. If they were a little cheaper I would have gone with yours especially since yours comes with the whole sill. Thanks for the kit by the way, I will be picking it up today from the shipping company.

Harris

Calvin: sorry once again for the delay. I hope you will enjoy your new gadget. If you need anything else in the future, please let me know. I hope I will be given another chance to serve you much better.

RJ55AMG

Calvin,

Thanks for those detailed instructions, I'll use them once I buy me a set.

Harris,

How much do you charge for these custom sills? I may be intersted. Thanks!

rrlucero

Thanks for the info Harris! I wish I knew about you before I had my sills put in.

And thanks for the compliment x-tian-230k! The car IS very fun to drive and now it's getting to be the perfect weather to drive with the top down all the time now. The joys of having a cab, I love it! :o

x-tian-230k

Rafi,

YOu don't need to know how much they are...ur too cheap to buy them FOOO..hahah j/p! They are super hot...i 'd get them but i am hurtin right now with funds!

RJ55AMG

LoL, tru that! but it doesn't hurt to ask the price

RJ55AMG

Hey I was browsing thru the forum just now and found this link:

http://www.bensbenz.com/guides/sill/w203sill.htm

I'm not sure how clear the installation instructions above are since I haven't tried it yet but just thought this may be able to help some of ya'll