A little backstory, I started turning wrenching on a '67 camaro and then turned to BMW's when I wanted to do more than go in a straight line. E30's and E28's were always my choice for the longest. I have had countless BMW's and they still remain a favorite for me until this day. I had a brief stint with working with a Mercedes dealership and worked multiple positions and that allowed me to appreciate the brand that Mercedes is. I have driven everything the old reliable diesels to AMG GT's and G65's. I knew at some point I would own a Mercedes but the pull was never strong. If I did grab one, it was either going to be a pre-MBUSA G500 or some sort of AMG. Those were my two filters that had to be met before I ever pulled the trigger of even looking at one seriously.

Fast forward a bit, and this W208 CLK55 popped up. I wasn't looking for it and it was nearly a 1 owner its whole life. Tons of paperwork and the guy was nearly crying when I bought it and drove it away. It needed the usual, valve cover gaskets, plugs, fluids, tires...nothing major. Not blown away by the styling but I love monoblocks and the M113/722.6 is what really sold me. I know I have a reliable setup. I bought this to be my "daily" as I work on my E39 touring S62 swap. I told myself that this car will remain stock so I can simply pull any part from the VIN...haha. We will see if I stay committed to that.

So the biggest flaw this car had was cosmetic. It has spent its whole life in Texas and it had some peeling clear and someone had "attempted" to wet sand a portion of the car. Well, I work in the collision industry so I could take care of that in time. I would rather have the mechanical bits solid and then deal with the show parts for when I get a chance to do it. After all, its a "daily", right? That's what I tell myself.

I will add some photos of what I have done with it so far and use this to document some of my progress. It has been in the booth once and had paint on the quarters back. It is now back having the roof done and possibly the hood/fenders? Not sure, because I need to have the time to prep it right. If nothing else, its interesting to see some of the photos to see what these guys look like disassembled and being worked on. It's nothing exotic but if you enjoy this chassis and an AMG, you may enjoy this some.

 

I'm with ya' - not real sold on the appearance, but you can't beat the M113 for reliability and it's easy to wrench on. Had to sell an '07 M6 when I got orders to Korea, and I've gotta say there's something to the comforting "this isn't likely to have a $4,000 SMG or VANOS explosion" feeling every time you start it... While it isn't nearly as visceral as that high-revving V-10, I really can't complain. It handles at least as well. Now I just need to swap it to a true dual exhaust with an x-pipe, because it doesn't sound nearly as nasty as that V-10...

 

I completely agree about the S85. It’s amazing and the noise and theatre it brings has its ups and downs. I’d have to find a three pedal car if I was going that route unless a “cheap” SMG showed up. Even then, I’d probably start acquiring manual transmission swap pieces. Haha

My S62 is currently sitting out and I have rod bearings for it. I went the WPC route and I’ll be doing other stuff as well before it finally goes into the touring. As big as that motor is, I don’t want to hassle with some things when I have plenty of room to work right now.

As for the CLK55, I worked on the bumper this weekend. I was going to fix a “small” crack and as I kept prepping it to repair it, it kept growing. Well, that led to a lot more prep but with a quick quote for a new bumper at the tune of $1000, I was a little more motivated to spend the time and energy to fix it.

As soon as I find somewhere I trust to put these photos for hosting, I’ll start adding photos. I used photobucket in the past and my posts are all messed up elsewhere. I here Flickr is decent? If you have recommendations, let me know. I’m not opposed to setting up something on my own either.

 

I've just attached them using the forum tool, honestly. I got tired of messing around with all the crappy free services.

 

Ok, I had a long enough delay with messing with different hosts and I will just resort to flickr for the time being. I'll figure out the best way to put these on my own hosting down the road to keep them on my own stuff and simple. Until then, here we go...


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Here is how I picked it up. Again, nothing special but I had memories of my Dad's friend buying one of these new back in 2002 and just remember thinking, "that Mercedes makes that kind of noise? Up until then, I was always a BMW person and at 16 I found myself with a '67 camaro. That will kind of let you know where I stood as for ideas of driving and then small block performance. I cut my teeth on the "67 camaro and learned a lot.
Overall, again it wasn't too bad. The paint was a little tired and at this point, I was thinking I may just have some fun with it, spend a little on it and let it go to the next guy.

My first course of action was the maintenance. I went ahead a changed fluids, tires, filters and plugs. Didn't capture a lot of that but I did grab one of plugs. I always found the M113 interesting because of the 16 plugs. FCP was my choice here in case I keep it long term and decide to do the plugs, associated vacuum lines again. All those lines were done when the valve cover gaskets came off too! I almost forgot about that one. What is a maintenance job without valve cover gaskets on a BMW or a Merc? This engine is easy to do maintenance work on. There is plenty of room and changing the plugs isn't bad. No special sockets, removing crazy stuff to gain access. It is straightforward and I appreciate that.



I have some photos of the maintenance items somewhere but they are probably on my HD in Capture 1. I haven't had the time to really go through the photos so they will hang out for a bit longer. I will take some proper photos of the car once it gets to a more complete point.

At this point, I was still a bit undecided with keeping the car or not. I'm notorious for going through cars but I never bought a Merc and this one seemed like a fun project. After all the time I have spent around Mercedes, it was shocking I never owned one but this guy was my first. To test out what it may look like if I went down certain paths, I did my first "modification" to it. Yeah, this car can pull off the star just fine but I wanted something sleek and unassuming at the end of the project. With that said, a new flat OEM roundel was on order.


So, maybe enough to push me a bit and push me in the direction of keeping it. I pushed on and next thing I knew, I had a buddy that does PDR work and he took a look at some of my dents and dings on the car. We traded out some stuff and this was another moment that allowed me to decide if I would keep the car or spend the money and more so time on paint.





Here you can see the money saved on those tires. From my memory, that car my Dad's friend bought new, the CLK could easily break them loose. Yeah, cheaper rubber is less sticky but it makes it more fun for the wallet to have some fun as well. Right now it's a trade-off. The back end of this car gets loose when it is pushed if ESP is off and you aren't careful. I haven't really learned the personality of the car yet but I know I need some stickier rubber under it if I really want to push it.

From here, my journey down the rabbit hole with paint began. I started looking at different routes, what "really" needed to be painted so I could have a plan of attack. This isn't the most "desirable" AMG, I know that, so I want to tread lightly on how much time and money I spend.

 

As for paint, we started here. The trunk lid and the roof were the worst with some peeling on the roof rails as well. Here is a bit a look at some of the initial prep into the rear deck lid. Not sure why that quarter got masked off like that because the whole rail was prepped and cleared. It must have been late and we were tired? If we were going through the prep, we were going to do it right, right?



I'll get back on and toss some more in later. Again, my goal and theme is to keep it sleek and unassuming. You know, the Hammers from the 80's is my mark is some ways. That is a good blueprint to me. If people that know what the car is know it, perfect. If regular people have no idea what it is, great!

 

So after the rear decklid, bumper and rails were prepped, it was time for some sealer, primer...More sanding and finally some base and clear.



And a "while we were in there, I decided to take care of that chrome grill...I say we because without the help of my friend, the painter, I wouldn't be able to accomplish any of this!






And the icing on the cake for me, matching the tails to what this car should have come with from the factory...a little W210 E55 flavor.

 

And the outcome of the tails and grill look pretty good to me. I will grab some more shots of this guy in a proper setting so everyone can get an idea of what it looks like as a whole if they are contemplating the look. The wheels are on the horizon at some point but I'm undecided on what route to take. I want to keep the car "stock" as much as possible but I'm a wheel guy. I have schnitzers on my BMW wagon and BBS' on my other BMW. These monoblocks are a big reason I bought the car. It's funny the previous owner didn't like them. I just wish they were 18's because that would keep me from wanting to scratch that unnecessary itch!





I'll say this, prepping that grille was a blast! It was worth it in the end. We got a fisheye or two in it but we took care of it. I know rock chips will take its toll on the grille but the difference in the cars looks is night and day.

 

Looking good. Keep us updated.

 

Thank you sir. I'll try to stay on top of it. I have completed the front bumper and roof. I'll grab those photos and update the thread with those as soon as I get them off the computer. The only thing I haven't painted on the car are the doors, hood and front fenders. I am going to figure out which are next and plan accordingly. I want to do the hood because its the hood. The prep and downtime is the only thing. I need to time it all right because I use this car as my daily. I already have a "project" car and don't need this one to turn into one! Some of you know what I mean.

 

****in awesome! Navy guy here myself! Was e46 m3 bimmer guy for years, came to the dark side as well and have even gotten a 19 s4 and 2020 m340 since as well and we're going in on the Benz!!! $14k (lol edit so much more!!!) into it so far and so much more to go! Finally am getting the spring compressor tool for my bday on Friday October 25th gofundme/ etc encouraged! Willing to buy any parts available on the cheap! Shoutout my buddies who have supplied so far. But once we do full suspension bushings etc car will be so clutch better than an SMG e46 for sure. My girl just got me a Porsche card so I'll be picking one of those up next but again man, congrats these things eat the streets follow me on insta @amgeeze anything u ever need to know just holler at me!!!

 

quik55, I’m with you on the BMW’s. I grew up riding in a E30, 325i coupe 5 speed to be exact. That car left a lot of lasting memories with me. Some memories I never knew until much later in life as I experienced different life events. My Mom put fear in me driving the wheels off of that car, shifting gears and multitasking. She scared me to death.

My love for older BMW’s will never go away. A solid E28/E30/2002...I’m done. I’ve had nice examples of them in the past but I’m only on more modern stuff now. This E39 touring project has consumed a fair bit of time and has traveled with me to 3 different states now.

It took me a long time to fully “come to the dark side” but I’ve been around it. My fathers friend had one of these brand new when I was younger. It left an impression on me. I loved the sleeper status of the AMG Mercs. Not flashy but would move and make wonderful noises. Definitely not your Grandpas Mercedes. I worked at a Mercedes dealership in various roles from Turing wrenches, marketing and then sales. From all the training I had, I really began to appreciate the brand and what the star stood for.

During my time at Mercedes, I thought I’d get the bug and by one. Well, I was still buying BMW’s and kept a VW TDI for its economy and snow duties. It wasn’t until I moved to DFW and stumbled upon this CLK55 in need of some help did I think to myself, “I can do that one. It has good bones, records, monoblocks, little paint work needed and monoblocks.” A perfect daily. My poor E46 back in Alabama that I dailied before I moved is just sitting in the garage. It’s a 2004 TiSi over manual black sport seats with a manual, of course. It can hang out as long as it has a place to.

My biggest hangup on the car was the lack of that third pedal. I seriously had to get my mind around not owing a car with a stick. The 722.6 was the sticking point and it made the decision easier but it was really weird. If that trans only shifted quicker? I don’t really care that much. The car isn’t a backroads kind of car to me but more so an autobahn cruiser. I appreciate what it is.

I’ll hit you up on Instagram. I’m only there for the cars. Some of my E39 Touring S62 stuff is on there. @shaunlavery

 

Damn man, you sound pretty ****ing nuts! Sorta like me but I can dig it. Ur definitely in for it, but it's just a car. I'm about to do full under body full bushings etc and be fully done with the resto but have had 0 direction on how to do it right other than quant who is the 55 amg super boss but we'll figure it out man!

 

I'm just lucky I have the resources to tackle some of this. It's great working on the AMG and the BMW project with friends making some memories. The M5 I'm robbing the drivetrain out of has an LS sitting in it now. That's my cousin's car and it has some big plans for it. He is a bit distracted by his Tacoma build he is doing but his BMW LS is going to be a monster! It will put both my AMG and M5 Touring to shame. Power wise, I knew that going in but that's fine. It will be cool seeing the personalities of both.

I'll get some updated photos in a few.

 

So, next on the agenda was to tackle the rest of the peeling clear. Again, the car is great mechanically but just needed a little attention in the paint department. The Texas sun showed its wear and tear on it. So what that meant for me was prep and lots of it. Upon looking at the car before buying it, I noticed some hail damage. Again, not a huge deal if the price was right. Well, after going through my stack of papers, the oringal owner got the insurance check form the hail and never had the work preformed. That's were the photo of my buddy doing the PDR came in as well as me doing all that blocking to ensure I captured everything.
The inital blocking revealed a few low spots I addressed. Not terrible.


And the final blocking. It was glass after this was finished.


The other piece of the puzzle was my missing mouthpiece. It was never with the car when I purchased it and I was tired of rolling around with the missing piece. I bought that new and took the extra time to repair some of the bumper. Initally, I was just going to paint the bumper on the car but I wanted to take care of a few items here and there.

Well, doing that opened a can of worms! It went from a small crack to the bumper being previously repaired and when all was said and done, the bumper was in three pieces in the bottom corner. I'm glad I took the time to fix this "small crack" as I was able to repair the bumper correctly before it was painted.

Previous Repair

And ready for its primer


This was the only part that I had to improvise on a bit. One of the pices holding that grille piece was broken off and completely missing. Since it was MIA and a new bumper was quoted around $999, I decided to make one. I took a quick mold of the others and went to it. After it was painted, you can't even tell. More importantly, I reinforced the others so they don't give way if they are flexed.


For the people possibly needing the OEM CLK55 Front Bumper Part Number


So she sat, waiting on her turn and more so time for us to get to it.


During this time, my sister's E53 X5 was leaking a bit of oil. Yeah, she is a BMW person too. I've done a ton of maintenance on this car and she doesn't want to turn loose of it. Even though its an 2002, she loves it! I love that about her. I rebuilt the transfer case last go around and a new front CV axle but this front oil pan was going to be a bear. I talked to a buddy and his price was too good. Taking down the front subframe was not on my to-do-list since I was doing that with the M5 and touring.

Not too bad for 200k miles. The rear main seal is still the original and that shocked me it wasn't the main cause.
And while it was at the shop, I did this! Felt like a fool. Needless to say, she got some fresh paint.



A couple days later, it was ready to roll. Things were looking good.


Keep in mind, most all of these are from the iPhone and I'll take some proper photos with my camera for me and everyone else that enjoys the W208 CLK55.

 

Got her back together in the shop but it needed a bath. Lots of dust from hanging around the body shop.

While it was in there, my sunroof decided to act up and not close. This was more of a celebratory photo to send to my friend. It did it when I first got the car and turned out to be the same thing. The tracks need to be pushed towards the middle of the car and you can get it to close. Too bad the car just doesn't have a sunroof. I have used it 0 times and could care less aobut it.


After a quick rinse, she doesn't look too bad. It still hasn't been buffed so there is still some more shine in there. I think I'm going to attempt some Ceramic Coating so I can minimize touching this black.






So, all in all, its not a bad look on the car. Enough change for it to look a bit updated and different. Still not sure if I want to keep it debadged on the rear or not. I'm leaning more towards keeping it clean.

 

How did you reinforce the other vertical pieces that hold the center grille bar? All of mine are cracked. I could superglue the cracks, but the next stress might break the bonds.

 

Jim, I would stay away from superglue. You will want something with some flexibility. You can go about this a couple different ways.

This bumper is made of an older plastic compared to the newer ones. If it is simply cracked, you could try a soldering iron and melting it back together. That may work. If not, you can get the right filler for it and go that route.

If that doesn't sound like something you want to tackle, you can go an epoxy route. I have access to a flexible epoxy. I prepped my surface, used mesh (think of drywall patch) and then put the expoxy in it. A good tip for you if you go this route, get some aluminum tape to tape off the areas that you don't want the epoxy to stick to minimize the repair time.

I reinforced all of mine and had to "create" one of mine that was missing. I'm not a huge fan of the bumper but like I mentioned in the first post, I was intending on keeping this car stock. I wish the grill opening was just wide open and that mouth piece and bars was not even a thing. I almost cut mine out but I backed out. I'm trying my best to appreciate the "stockness" for now.

Hope this helps some.

 

Looks super,
im going through all of this on an 02 nearly identical.
Combing through the mechanical service first while dd.
I have the black urethane primer, paint and clear waiting. Always enjoyed bringing something special back to New.
Best Gator

 

Thank you sir. I have been away for a bit but I have made some additional progress that I should put up here. As much as I didn't want to ruin the aesthetics of the interior, I put a clean looking Alpine double din unit in for CarPlay. I live in an area where having access to Navigation is a great asset to me. While doing this, I went ahead and ran some RCA's and the line for the Backup Camera. I didn't need any two of those but a friend sold me some stuff for too good of a price. I needed a shallow mount 10" for my touring build and I got 2 10"s as well as an amp for a good price. Was it worth it, I guess? Haha. The headunit, definitely.

I have had the car PDR'd as well. There were a couple of dents I couldn't get to that I didn't want to go the conventional route. The whole car is basically ding free right now. It is nice. I need to do a nice buff job on it and then I think I will spring for a ceramic coating. I've always owned silver cars and I want to touch this black as minimal as possible!

 

Awesome job on the repair and repaint.

I have a crack on my bumper and i want it done right.

What do you recomend?

Heres a pic.

 

+1 it's been a couple of weeks since I've made any progress on the 55. Have been prepping to do rear sub mounts but have just been putting it off for no real reason.
The wiper assembly gasket is probably the most shot part on the car and will most likely disassemble that today. aside from that not knowing or being able to find info on how to remove the window line trim has been keeping me from that.

but yeah the paint is bad. Very lucky to have it in the northeast and the rust be what I would consider minimal. There's a vandalism reported on the car fax. From the looks of it someone keyed the **** out of the car you can actually see it starting to come through the what I assume is Maaco paint job. They cut a hard line down the body of the car where u can actually feel the transition lol.

the problem is...I'm pretty close to just sanding the whole car down. I don't trust anyone with paint so that's not really an option. I think my best bet is going to be wrap. So I'll for now just sand down to hopefully just primer, do body filler and throw a wrap on there which should hold for 3-5 years (lol)

Exhaust has been an issue as well. I popped the axle back muffler off and tbh I never want to put it or a stock one back on ever again. However, I'm not down with cutting it and would so much rather prefer to never deal with someone who does exhausts/welding etc. I'm hesitant to run it and get it up to temp since the exhaust is just blasting on the axle boot. I suppose I could just get a downward facing pipe in the meantime? Anyone know the diameter?

looking at timing I'll eventually need to get back into the interior for my driver seatbelt replacement/seat removal and seam repair.
ill most likely end up re stripping the entire interior (including carpeting) for initial test runs in early spring. The shedded weight should make for some good pulls.

one of my hood struts is a bit weak.

Other than that only yet to be changed fluids are transmission and diff. I will most likely do filter, gasket and fluid as well as connector.
I'm hesitant to use liqui molly Diff fluid or anything non Mb but it's so much cheaper. We'll see.

im excited to do my transmission cooler to and return lines when I do my fluid change as they are a bit rusty.

my rear main and oil level sender will continue to leak for the forseable future 😂

I also have a little barely seep from a forward freeze plug on passenger side. Lol I have replacement plug in stock

two of the only original things which need to be replaced are the MOT or little click click valve and Duo valve which seems like it just thumps away and I'm pretty sure it works. There's a nice hvac door that likes to SLAM behind the glove box. But we're still doing ok.

the cheapest fix would be to repair the ribbons on the gauge cluster but as another member has noted, man that's daunting 😂😂😂

I'm nervous to do the driveshaft center bushing but feel like I really should while I have the subframe dropped. I don't understand if it's just that the driveshaft has to be re assembled the exact way or the line up of the trans/ diff is the most important like if it doesn't go back exactly something's blowing up haha (and I've replaced driveshafts before 😥😥&#128549


where I'm stuck... I have basically the same damage to my front bumper that you did, it was probably over a year before I drift boy zip tied it back together which is the way it still is. Also my center pieces are disconnected.

Once I sand this thing down completely. What exactly do I use to fix the separation, I'm assuming the mesh like u said but what is the stuff called. Also what exact filler do you use for plastic bumpers? I have a decent gouge in rocker panel aka side skirt which needs to be filled. As well as all imperfections on rear bumper.

 

Its a shame these lower bumpers get so abused and break like they do. The worst part is the cost to replace them! My OE M5 bumper was around $450 when I bought it for the touring about a year or so ago? I would have paid that price all day for a new bumper for the CLK55. That said, the $999 price point gave me some motivation to fix mine and I'm really glad I did. I say this because of all cars, we just got a CLK430 in the shop with the sport package in. It had a front end hit and needed a bumper. After seeing the brand new one, I lusted after it a bit but once I flipped it over and looked at the pieces that hold on the little mouth piece that always breaks, I'm fine with mine. I reinforced all of mine and mine are much stronger and won't break like the OE bumper.

As for you guys fixing yours, I took some photos of the products I used. You may be able to get your hands on some of the items. I have used some other plastic epoxy on one of my BMW bumpers in the past and it is still holding up to this day. The key to any method with the epoxy is prep. Make sure you prep it correctly and just have some patience. I'll post up the photos I took in a bit. I need a chance to get them over to Flickr.

As for your cowl panel, unfortunately, that looks like a replacement item. Mine is a a chalky black but isn't cracked. I was going to replace it but may try some Cerakote wipes I found to see if it buys me some time. My BMW's are notorious for this too but I don't know if messing with that monowiper is worth it or not for me. I've only done that a couple times.

 

Well, I have been a bit quiet on the CLK55 front. I just hit up FCP Euro for a few bits for my M5 Touring Project as well as a steering dampener for the CLK55. I haven't really "needed" anything for the AMG but I figured I should get it at least something while I was grabbing all the BMW parts. Oh, an E46 M3 came up and found me. Yeah, I wasn't exactly looking for that one but the price was too good and it has three pedals.

To make myself feel a bit better about the AMG, the last thing I had been putting off on it lately was getting the wheels refinished. I went back and forth with just the original silver or a black variant of some sort. Typically, I don't like black wheels at all but after some talk with the guy that handles all of our wheels, we came up with a good clone of the Hammer wheels. They just got here today so I will install them back on the AMG and grab some photos.

 

I suppose “desirable” is a relative term depending on your needs and wants. 😎

I’ve been a fan of this car since introduction, I willingly drank the kool aid when it came to the 208/55 coupe!
-This was the quickest and fastest Mercedes-Benz production car when it came out for the 2001 model year.
-This was the very first Mercedes-Benz where the factory quoted a quarter mile time (13.3@109). The factory 0-60 number was 4.89 seconds. This was faster than the 911 and many other performance cars of the day.
-Just 3,381 units of the coupe were produced worldwide
-A relative bargain with virtually all options included (except COMAND and CD changer)
-Made wonderful noises....unlike ANY other Mercedes-Benz at the time
-Muscular stance
-I’m still enamored with this beauty after 18 years! 👍👍😎😎