Rudeney

I finally got around to installing my C107-style LED DRL's:

Rudeney

So in case you are wondering about the install...

I removed the black plastic outer grill trim (three #10 TORX bolts hold it in place). I then removed the chrome surround from that. It's just glued in place around the perimeter, so I used a thin flatblade screwdriver to pry the glued surfaces apart from the back, being careful not to break the plastic.

Next, I used black painted aluminum grill material, cut and bent to fit inside the plastic trim. This was used just for aesthetics to hide the big round hole left by the stock fog light. I secured it to the plastic trim with a single screw in the lower outside corner. The LED strip has two bolts on the back that will secure it as well.

I put one of the LED strips bolts through one of the "mesh" look holes in the plastic, the other ended up being right on the inside edge of the round fog light opening. Both bolts were secured with washers and nuts. This had the new aluminum mesh secured.

I did some experimentation with resistors to see about "fooling" the car into thinking it still had the fog light bulbs installed, but I never could find one that would work. I had some small ones, and the only large one I had was a 20W 8ohm. I think a 5W 250ohm is what I need. I'll probably make another trip to Radio Shack this week. So, what I did was to cover the stock fog light's with tape, then install them on the backside of the bumper, pointing backward, out of the way. I tapped into the circuit and connected the LED's.

Doing the first one, including time to experiment with resistors, took about two hours. The other side took less than 30 minutes. I was lazy and did not jack up the car and remove the wheel to fully remove the shrouds behind the bumper. Instead, I just removed the four retainer pins and dropped it down enough to get my hand and tool in there to remove the stock fog lights.

grech

Hey Rudeney, thanks for the installation write-up. The lights look great IMO! Would definitely love to do this to my car. If you dont mind me asking, where can I get the LED strips? Are they OEM?

Looking great!

Rudeney

Bought on eBay:

8 LED MERCEDES DRL

chrono12

Really awesome project. Great revamp for our cars and well worth your effort.


Too bad about the Auburn plate, though. Roll damn Tide plus I think front plates make w209s too busy, esp since it's just for vanity.

Rudeney

Thanks! And yeah, I hate front plates, but this was a California car, so it had the bracket mounted by the dealer (using big fat rusty screws right into the bumper, of course). I had to put "something" there! I really don't take the whole rivalry that seriously - the 16yo had me put "Roll Tide" plates on the front of her C240 and a big pink "A" on the back glass.

Clkboi

nice very clean job man!

ahmadk

nice work... someone actually did it

Rudeney

Thanks, guys! One thing I forgot to mention is that I have the SmartTop (a.k.a. Intellitop) installed, so my fogs (now the LED's) function as DRL's. The fog light circuit is on when I start the car, then if I switch the park or headlights on, they go off unless I pull the knob out to turn the fog light circuit back on. Without this feature of the SmartTop controller, they would function like regular fog lights and not be very good as DRL's (and the LED's are crap for fog lights!).

midnight AMG

where did you get the replacement mesh to cover the fog hole?

THANKS!

I was working on this for a while too

Rudeney

I just ordered it from an eBay seller. It's "generic" mesh grill material. It's nowhere near as thick and well made as the center grill, but it does the job of covering the holes left by the original fog lights. I was actually going to try to fabricate it and form it to replace the plastic fog light grills, but it wasn't heavy enough. I considered buying the C207 fog light grill panels, but after looking at them, I decided they probably would require too much modification.

JG1320

This looks nice man!! Did you have to use capacitors on this project? Which power supply did you use to power it up?

Rudeney

I have not found a good way to "fool" the CAN bus bulb sensor. I tried a few cancelers, but they haven't worked. I rigged up a resistor and capacitor to mimic the bulb, but they resistor gets a bit hotter than I like. For now, I still have the original fogs lights mounted backward in the bumper, just covered with foil tape to black them out. These LED's needed no special power supply - I just wired them parallel in the fog light circuit.

JG1320

Ok, so is it still working now?...did you have to snip the wires and connect it like that or you tapped into the halogen bulbs/connector?
Your information is greatly appreciated.

Klinh

Why even bother doing doing that. Just make it a stand alone unit. Here's the solution............


http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Daytime-...item43a9b74745

eddieo45

Excellent mod and DIY writeup.
Anyone else have problems with eBay links in the mobile version of MBWorld? I like the m.mbworld on my Blackberry but it seems to convert the eBay links to mobile eBay, which sux.

mikata

It's not your blackberry or m.mbworld, when you click the link, ebay or the website recognizes that you are coming from a mobile phone and redirects you to the mobile version.
I think you can press "show me the full version" or something at the bottom of the page.

JG1320

I guess i just have to go that route Klinh if tapping it to foglight won't work. Thanks for the info.

Rudeney

I tapped into the foglight wiring harness. I had bought a pair of error "cancelers" that didn't work. The pair was only $12, so I used their wiring harness for the tap-in to make it a clean, water proof connection.

As for the eBay switch, I didn't need anything like that since I tapped into the foglight circuit. Of course the factory configuration is that the fog light circuit is only available when the city lights or headlights are on, and that would sort of defeat the use of the fog light circuit to power the DRL's. However, I have a "SmartTop" a.k.a. "IntelliTop" control module installed for simpler operation of the cabriolet soft top. So what does that have to do with anything? Well, it has a bonus feature that allows the factory fog lights to be turned on for use as DRL's. So, setting this, my LED's (and my hidden, blacked-out factory fog lights) are on when the engine is on with no additional wiring.

sleepyheadzzz

i wonder if these would work

http://www.ebay.com/itm/H8-H11-Turn-...item564718fd8f

Rudeney

Probably. I just ordered two and will try them. My main concern is heat dissipation, but they seem to have some heat sinks so we shall see...

sleepyheadzzz

i just ordered 2 also...they are dirt cheap...'im thinking of just pluggin the + and - directly into the holes and seeing if it'll work...hopefully it will...i was also thinking of tapping into my side marker wiring so they could flash when i'm signaling for a turn ...but then it seemed kinda corny lol

bonhamsurf

DO you have a link to this mesh or one like it on EBay? There's 381 results for "Generic Mesh Grill" in Automotive category?
Thanks! I'm trying to do this on a 2006 clk350 vert

Klinh

I think with the removal of the oem foglight, the DRL light like the one I used on my Slk would look so much better like oem.

Rudeney

@bonhamsurf: I just bought some generic stuff. A few months ago, I was talking to my local "indy" shop owner and he has a W208 and removed his factory fogs completely. He used "gutter guard" mesh from Home Depot.

@klinh: My idea was to go for the new C207 (E-class coupe) look which uses the "L" shaped LED bar. The problem with the CLK is that the factory fog light trim (specifically the chrome surround) is part of the trapezoidal plastic piece in the bumper. At first, I thought I'd remove the entire part, but that lease a really ugly hole there and it was going to be pretty difficult to fashion the mesh to fill it. That's why I gently removed the chrome trim and then used the mesh to cover just the round hole left by the removal of the OEM fog lights.