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Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
e55 amg manual s210 wagon swap - build thread
Hello everyone, I think it is time to introduce myself and my car. This post will be a build thread for the car and will also include the diy of the manual swap because I know that is probably why people are here. I have always stalked the forums but never really posted. I have slightly more of a presence on Instagram (@kylejeworski & @socalw210s) and Facebook. I have always been a huge fan of the w210 stuff after receiving an e320 for my first car blah blah blah. I'll try not to bore you. After a good friend of mine named Abraham (@kinghorn.x, thanks for the help <3) did an e55 swap into his e320 wagon I was intrigued. I already had an e55 sedan and had always wanted the wagon version. I decided I wanted to build one since we didn't get the s210 amg in the states. After I made that decision, I found some guy on Facebook that had manual swapped his e55. He basically told me to get everything out of a crossfire and it will work. And besides that, I could not find any other info. At all. Cool, I'm in. So all I needed was an e55, a wagon, and a Chrysler Crossfire.
Ok I lied, I already had the E55. Long story short this car had a history. My good friend bought it, crashed it, sold it. Some guy bought it, "fixed it" (I will get to that later), and a few years later thought it needed a new transmission so sold it to me. I ended up buying it back for my friend knowing the price was so good that if he did not want it I could flip it pretty easy (this was before the 55 wagon idea). After my friend had it parked for a few months he told me he didn't want it. I don't blame him, it needed much more work than we initially thought. So then I asked the question. I know this was your first amg and you love it more than anything... can I strip it for parts and junk it? I told him I would (hopefully) be making a much better car out of it. He reluctantly said yes. And the price of this 2000 e55? $1k. With 120k miles, ruby interior and silver exterior. Yeah. I towed it to a mechanic, he reset the trans codes which took it out of limp mode and it turns out all it needed was an auto shifter. I wouldn't be needing that anyway. Andddd this is when it got real.
January 2019 - first day purchased for my friend March 2019 - picking it up, taking it to the mechanic to reset transmission codes finally at home and driving normally for the first time had to get some of the cars together in a pic
I did the entire swap in my parents garage. So because I did not want to be kicked out of the house, I decided to strip the E55 and junk the shell first, and then source the wagon all while looking for a crossfire at a junkyard to take some of its parts. This way I wouldn't be stripping 2 cars at the same time. I do want to note - I am not a mechanic. Nor am I even close to one or live in a family with one. I had never taken an engine out before this. I had barely just replaced the rear main seal on my other e55 sedan and done a timing belt on an Audi TT so I guess I thought I was ready to build a car that hadn't been built before.
July 2019 - last time the car was supporting its own weight Not the best looking engine bay engine and trans out car completely stripped and ready for the junkyard bye
I found out a little too late that I had picked a bad year for the donor e55. Since it was a 2000, to make the swap much much easier I had to source a 2000 wagon. This is because even though the 2000 is the first year of the facelift, it still has the me2.0 ecu and electronics of the prefacelift. For the prefacelifts, the 98 and 99 will work together (although the e55 was only first available in 1999). And the 01-02 e55s will work with the 01-03 wagons with me2.8. Still not sure why the wagons were gifted to us in 03.
Since I did not want to have to convert to me2.8 and I wanted to be able to swap some of the e55 facelift body panels onto the wagon I was stuck looking for a 2000. And I already knew it needed to be silver with black interior. So I began searching and I found a cheap one on OfferUp in a surprisingly short amount of time with 190k miles. I shrewdly negotiated my way down to $1600 because of things it needed that obviously did not matter to me. It needed a ton of work in every department. It did have heated seats and hid headlights though! But I did want to live the stock e320 wagon life for a little while. I spent a few hours fixing and replacing basic things (like the nonexistent motor mounts) and left on a 1,000 mile road trip 2 days after buying it. I may have tried to blow up the engine a few times by seeing how long I could keep it at redline, but we all know it's impossible to kill an m112.
August 2019 - wagon purchased! road trip to Pinecrest lake directly after purchasing
While I was looking for and then driving the wagon, I was restoring all the parts that came from the e55. This was no easy task. Although everything only had 120k miles on it, it seemed like EVERYTHING had 120k miles on it. Including the engine oil. I only know it was not the original oil because all the oil was lost in the crash. But I am sure the oil that went in at 100k miles after replacing the oil pan was the oil I took out at 120k miles. And if it was the correct oil it would not have looked how it did. The oil pan only had half the necessary bolts and all those looked like some self tapping screws for wood. I do not even know how it was holding any oil. So I was able to clean and reuse the lower oil pan but every bolt hole in the upper pan was stripped. Luckily my good friend Jesse (@bigbirdbenztech who actually helped me a ton with everything and answered all the dumb questions I had) in Washington had an extra one so I traded him an e55 ecu he needed for it. Guess what he needed the ecu for? An s210 e55 wagon he was building!
Basically every single thing the previous owner had "fixed" from my friends crash either had to be re-fixed or replaced completely. How fun. I also replaced or painted everything on the engine without actually taking it apart. And because I have always loved the color copper I decided it would look really good on my valve covers and brake calipers. Because everyone likes to do a silver intake manifold I went with a wrinkle black finish. And to complete the look, a wire wheel to the exhaust manifold to make it shiny again.
August 2019 had to pressure wash to get it decently clean those should not be that color
replaced and sealed pans that's what bad oil will do right before rms install
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Now back to the wagon. I think I drove it for 3 weeks before parking it as an e320 for the last time and taking it apart. This was easy since it was my second time taking apart all the same stuff. Pull the engine and trans, drop front suspension and subframe, drop rear suspension and subframe. Done. The wagon was a little harder because I decided to take out all the sls (self leveling) rear suspension. It was just a matter of removing the lines going from the front to the back of the car and taking out the accumulators and some other small things. All the left-over power steering fluid in the lines made it even more fun once it entered my eyes. Did I mention I was doing this whole thing on not-yet-recalled harbor freight jack stands?
September 2019, time to get rid of this v6
So as you may have noticed, I have not mentioned the manual swap yet. I could not find a crossfire anywhere. There was a kit listed on eBay for around $1,200 but that was about 4x more than a junkyard price. I ended up finding a manual c230 at a local yard only to find out none of the parts work! (Except for one part that I'll also get to later). So after months of searching, some guy texted me that he was about to receive a 2005 manual crossfire in Sacramento. That is a 12 hour round trip with no traffic. Guess who took a 1 day trip to Sacramento. I think I ended up paying around $800 for everything through him, but he had already taken it out of the car which was nice. I had tried ordering parts through eBay before this with no luck. I had found a manual shifter and was only told it was no longer available after paying for it. I had also bought a 50k mile transmission because it was pretty inexpensive about a month before that. I thought it would never arrive but it showed up the night before I left to get the kit in Sacramento. I guess it's not a bad thing to have 2 because I really did not know how long these v6 transmissions would last.
October 2019, Full manual swap in the trunk of my e55
6 speed manual
Pedals fit and bolt up with no issues!
e320 brake fluid reservoir has this nipple for the clutch line, the e55 one does not
Hole in the firewall already there for clutch line
At this point, I still had no idea if any of this stuff would actually work. So the first thing I did was test fit the flywheel. Oh... it doesn't fit. Cool. Got on the internet and tried to figure out why it doesn't fit. Apparently Mercedes decided to change the crankshaft bolt pattern starting in 05. I texted my dude to verify what year car all this was out of. 2005. Of course. I forgot to mention I was trying to do the manual swap cheap at first just to verify everything would work. If everything worked, I would order a manual conversion kit from Rennsport Factory because from my research they seemed to be the best. Sooo the only crossfire that would even fit would be an 04. I could not find anything. Rennsport it is. Although the 1-2 month wait time did make me a little sad. I sent an email and got a prompt response from the owner (I think), Phil. I told him what car I had (or was planning to have) and how I drive. His recommendation was.... to buy the kit he had made for his own e55 wagon before the engine lost compression. Ok, now I'm sold.
Because it was already made and sitting in storage, presumably for when he got around to fixing his car, I received it in about a week. I installed the lightweight single mass flywheel, and upgraded clutch and pressure plate and had the 716.6 transmission connected to the m113 engine for the first time. I had also purchased a new slave cylinder and pilot bearing. It felt so wrong but so right.
05 crossfire flywheel doesn't fit
New clutch, pressure plate, flywheel from Rennsport Factory
New flywheel bolts and pilot bearing
Lightweight flywheel installed
Clutch installed!!
New slave cylinder
M113 + 6 speed finally mated!!!
By this time I had installed the pedals. They literally bolted up. I found the hole in the firewall. Exactly where it should be. I used the e320 brake fluid reservoir with the e55 brake master cylinder and brake booster because it already had the little nipple coming off it in the perfect location for the line. I just had to cut off the end and connect it to the clutch master cylinder via the crossfire hose and use the crossfire firewall grommet. The clutch hardline from master to slave cylinder was a little more difficult because it was nowhere near the shape it needed to be. The only hole in the trans tunnel was the one the parking brake cable goes through so I slid it through there and bent it into position because I didn’t want to drill another hole. Perfect.
This was the moment I was waiting for. I dropped the engine and manual transmission into the car after installing the e55 front subframe, steering rack, suspension and brakes. I did need to cut the shifter hole back about 1.5 inches because the shifter linkage was just a bit longer than it needed to be. I was told I needed to cut and extend the crossfire transmission bracket which was true. But luckily I had already purchased all the manual c230 parts and I discovered the c230 transmission bracket was almost the perfect size. I had to drill 3 of the holes a little wider. The s210 chassis already had holes in it for the manual trans bracket so I bolted it up and the transmission was officially mounted in the car. I decided to build my own bracket for the shifter mount because I did not have the crossfire one (which also does not really fit). Luckily the holes were very close to where the driveshaft brace is so I made mounts sticking off that and it worked perfectly.
Engine bay cleaned, e55 subframe and steering rack also cleaned and installed
November 2019, the day after my birthday, the engine and transmission are in the car
Multiple holes already tapped into the chassis from the factory
Modified manual c230 bracket
Cut back shifter hole 1.5 inches
My take on a custom shifter mount
Worked perfectly bolted up to the stock driveshaft brace
manual shifter in an s210!
Finally starting to look like a car again
Now here is the craziest part of the swap. You are probably wondering what I did for the driveshaft because surely it must be custom made. The driveshaft is the crossfire front half connected to the e55 rear half. Don’t know why it works, don’t know how it works. But it works. By this time I had replaced the rear subframe bushings and had the rear subframe and all related suspension parts in. And of course I had to match the e55 calipers with the valve covers.
I didn't have a subframe bushing tool.... so.... well...
Rear calipers and stainless steel lines
Front suspension
I connected power steering lines, installed the cooling system, stainless steel brake lines and fluids. I had to bleed the clutch and brakes to make sure everything worked. And I finally had the car ready to start. Obviously it does not just fire up with the engine swap. My buddy Abraham had used a crazy knowledgeable guy (Deplore on the forums. Thank you again) to code his ecu so I used him too. (he did not code it for manual, it was just coded for an e320 to e55 engine swap) I had already sent him my e55 and e320 ecu a few weeks prior and he showed up at my house, installed it, and fired up the car. Somehow I had installed everything correctly and did not have a single issue. Yes there is a cel for the transmission not being there, and the auto shifter needs to be plugged in to start and drive the car. But I was still very pleasantly surprised. For some reason I had trouble believing this whole thing would work. I got in the car, put the clutch in, put it in gear, and released the clutch. The rear wheels started to spin!!! What a relief. Is it time for a test drive? Not without wheel fitment issues!! Backstory - I have 2 sets of wheels for my e55 that I was planning on swapping from car to car as needed. 1 set is custom monoblocks. The rears are widened to 10.5 inches and I have rears in the front which are 9 inches wide. The other set is oz mae. The rears are 11.5 inches wide and the fronts are 9.5. No one had told me the wagon has less room inside the wheel well compared with the sedan. None of my wheels fit the rear. Spare wheels to the rescue!
November 2019, the car is on the ground!!!
It doesn't roll but it looks good
Spares on the car and somehow drove it around my neighborhood at midnight with no exhaust
I was still in shock at this point
The next day, stole some monoblocks from my e320
And there it is. The first manual e55 s210 wagon. And more to come later!!
Awesome thread! You are a true enthusiast, big props for tackling this project. The trans in the E55 trunk....awesome. Keep the pics and posts coming. Driving with no exhaust...something I used to do years ago with several different cars in various states of repair....neighbors love the v-8 noise, don't they, haha.
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by Bowyer
Awesome thread! You are a true enthusiast, big props for tackling this project. The trans in the E55 trunk....awesome. Keep the pics and posts coming. Driving with no exhaust...something I used to do years ago with several different cars in various states of repair....neighbors love the v-8 noise, don't they, haha.
Thank you for the kind words! Somehow neighbors still like me hahaha, not sure for how much longer
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Ok, so here is the important part, the parts list. I always like to replace the rear main seal and end plate when dropping a transmission. And yes the flywheel bolts in the auto vs manual are different which is why I supplied the part number.
I decided to take the car on a 600 mile round trip to Vegas about a week after finishing it with 5 passengers and a trunk full of luggage, really using the wagon to its fullest potential. And it performed flawlessly. Interior was only half assembled and the rear Ford Ranger shocks were a bit too tall for the height of the springs so it was riding on bump stop the entire time. But it was a great drive to break in the new clutch. Oh, and it actually snowed on the way there.
So now that the car was driving well and actually worked I needed to make it look a little better. I polished the headlights, painted the lower grills and installed the fog lights. I also made room for my widened monoblocks with a hammer on the inside of the wheel well and a fender roller on the outside.
Yes the bumper still needs some work but looks much better
2/10/20 we always go on a group drive on this day. I had driven the car about 7,000 miles by this time.
So the interior was the thing that needed the most improvement on the car. The car originally came with black interior but someone had swapped in gray seats, door panels, and seatbelts at some point and it was all torn and filthy. My good friend Abe gave me black seatbelts, front seats, and door panels from a parts car he had, but I needed AMG interior.
testing my custom installed universal shift boot 1 bolt on each corner held it in turns out the auto and manual can use the same shifters so I stole this from my e320. The gap is due to the shifter linkage being a bit too long
Luckily for me, unluckily for my brother, someone had hit and totaled his e55. With the insurance money he purchased a c43 with the intent of putting the e55 engine into it. Which means I had another car to use for parts He told me if I helped him do the 55 swap, he would give me the red and black interior I had found for him at a junkyard a year earlier. So in March we were both stuck at home for a couple months due to this worldwide pandemic so we made some very good progress. I helped him do the engine swap in his c43 and I completely took apart his interior to use in my car. And of course I still had all the parts from my parts car. Every single piece of this interior was the best of all the parts from all the cars I had access to.
This was my brothers e55 completely stripped My wagon ready for a new dash and full amg Birdseye maple wood with comand conversion Everything installed Some cutting and some soldering of wires and comand is working! Looks like an e55!
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Next on the list of things to do was shorten the shifter linkage. It only needed to be shortened about 1.5 inches and luckily I found a way to do that relatively easy.
took apart the entire shifter to refurbish and shorten much better after cleaning and painting shortened 1.5 inches now utilizes 2 bolts instead of 4 but seems secure linkage shortened 1.5 inches put together shorter and cleaner First time it's been all together No more gap!
So now it was time for front seats and door panels. I had 4 red front seats. 2 from my donor car and 2 from my brother's car. 1 seat in each car was torn pretty bad and 1 from each car was decent. Luckily I now had a decent drivers seat and a decent passenger seat. I also always preferred the feel of the prefacelift seat over the facelifts. The biggest reason is because since the prefacelifts aren't orthopedic, they naturally have more side bolstering. Since my seats all had torn seat bladders, I tore out all the orthopedic stuff and stuffed the sides with padding to make it have more bolstering. And it worked perfectly. They feel amazing when driving. I also put caps on the air lines going to the seats. I used all 4 red door panels, but for the wood trim, I had 3 Birdseye maple cars to choose from. I chose the best of every single piece I had.
finally looks like my dream e55 wagon spec!! my brother's car only had a passenger side red stitched floor mat. And yes I took out the auto shifter for a better photo...
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by v8sonly
This is fantastic, love that you jumped right in on it and did a great job of documenting!
Is there any weight savings between the 722.6 and 716.6? The manual looks quite a bit smaller.
Thank you! There is actually a huge weight savings on the transmission. Especially when you factor in auto trans, torque converter, and stock flywheel and compare with manual trans and lightweight flywheel that I have. According to some quick research the 722.6 weighs around 175 pounds and the 716.6 feels no more than half that. I was able to pick it up and move it around pretty easily by just lifting it. This car revs up stupidly quick because of the amount of mass thats gone (one of the reasons I decided to not run a mechanical fan on this car) which makes downshift blips the most satisfying part of driving hahaha
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by v8sonly
Love it. You're giving me dirty thoughts of stuffing a 5.4 and 6 speed into a facelift R129 someday.
Maybe I missed it, but how did you handle everything around the ECU and TCU?
No lie, this car makes me want to put a 5.4 and 716 into everything. I can't drive my m3 without thinking about how much better that car would be with the engine and transmission of the e55 mixed with the chassis and steering feel of the e46.
So far, I have done nothing with the ecu and tcu. Everything works as should when you do this swap without touching anything. The only downsides are that there is a cel and the auto shifter is still plugged in. Since I have a 2000 it has the old version ecu (me2.0). I had a friend trying to clone a manual ecu to work with mine but it's a ridiculous amount of work. So as of now I think the plan is to convert to me2.8 from the 01 and 02 cars whose ecu can easily be written for manual. I'm not in a rush because it is a good amount of work and money to get rid of just a check engine light
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by v8sonly
Good info for sure. Crazy how simple it ends up being!
Thanks! Yeah, it is weird these swaps were never really a thing before. I know they were done a handful of times on various chassis' before but never documented so I had to figure most of it out myself as I went along. But its awesome to see the amount of people doing it now that I've been able to share the knowledge! One of the first people that reached out to me asking how to do the swap was @jikjakz on Instagram and Youtube and he did a really good job of documenting the progress
Hello Kyle,
I enjoyed reading your post and admire your creativity in bringing your project to life. I having been thinking about dping the same and I have a few questions for you.
1. What did you do in terms of plugging in engine harness to the e320 body. Did the E55 harness plug into the E320 engine harness ?
2. Did you swap the E55 rear differential into the E320 wagon ?
3. Is it possible to keep the Self levelling suspension by bolting the E320 wagon Power Steering/Hydraulic Fluid Reservoir onto the E55 block ?
4. How did you connect the electric cooling fan from the E55 ?
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by 2000w210wagon
Hello Kyle,
I enjoyed reading your post and admire your creativity in bringing your project to life. I having been thinking about dping the same and I have a few questions for you.
1. What did you do in terms of plugging in engine harness to the e320 body. Did the E55 harness plug into the E320 engine harness ?
2. Did you swap the E55 rear differential into the E320 wagon ?
3. Is it possible to keep the Self levelling suspension by bolting the E320 wagon Power Steering/Hydraulic Fluid Reservoir onto the E55 block ?
4. How did you connect the electric cooling fan from the E55 ?
Thanks
Thanks
Thank you! If you're even thinking of doing it that means you should
1. The engine harness plugs directly into the ecu, and you have to use the e55 ecu and get it modified. Nothing else has to be changed. The only caveat is that the e55 engine harness and ecu have to be the same type as the wagon. So for example judging by your name I assume your wagon is a 2000. You can use a 55 engine from any car, but the harness and ecu have to be from a 2000 e55. Which is why you'd get rid of any headache by just getting a 2000 e55 donor car.
2. Yes the entire drivetrain is from the e55. I swapped over the entire rear subframe which includes the diff.
3. Yes, you could keep the self leveling because the real e55 wagons have it. I am not sure if anyone has and the length of the lines from pump to rack might be an issue. I know for the sedan the e320 and e55 have different lines but the pump should be the same. Worst case you could source lines from Europe off an e55 wagon.
4. Cut and soldered the e55 connector and used the e55 fan controller which plugs right in place of the e320 one
Hello Kyle,
Sorry for all the questions, I located a 2003 CLK 55 and a 2002 ML55 locally. Which harness would be the better one to use in the 01-03 wagon ? Not sure is there is a difference.
The transplant car is going to be 2001-2003 wagon.
Not sure about the M113 variants in the above cars and whick ones came with ME 2.8
The M113 5.4 is a 5.4 L (5,439 cc) version with the same 97 mm (3.82 in) bore as the M113 5.0 but with a longer 92 mm (3.62 in) stroke developed by Mercedes-AMG. These cars were the first to carry the 55 AMG title. Power output is 342 to 362 hp (347 to 367 PS; 255 to 270 kW) at 5,500 rpm with 510 to 530 N⋅m (376 to 391 lb⋅ft) of torque at 2,800–5,400 rpm. Many popular tuners such as Kleemann USA, Amg Affalterbach developed supercharger systems for this model, mirroring the later M113K design. 396 hp (401 PS; 295 kW) at 5,750 rpm and 520 N⋅m (384 lb⋅ft) at 3,750 rpm of torque in the SLK55 AMG Black Series.
Current: 00 e55 6 speed wagon, 99 e55, 00 ml55, 02 m3, 83 ur quattro
Originally Posted by 2000w210wagon
Thanks for the replies Kyle. Based on your response I am thinking on sourcing a 2001-2002 E55 and E320 wagon donor.
I noticed the AMG side skirts on your car, are the sedan and wagon side skirts interchangeable ?
I just responded to your private message but yes the side skirts are interchangeable! So are all 4 door panels although the rear doors and windows are a different shape. The 2003 clk55 and 2002 ml55 both are me2.8 and have the same engine.
Looks fantastic dude!
You have come a long way with your Frankenstein wagon the S210.
At DMV are you going to re-register this vehicle from previous E320 to be an E55 AMG?
What was the reason you scraped the silver E55 AMG?
Rust issues or other problems?
Crossfire transmission how does it hold up with the massive torque from the 5,4 lump?
The tuxedo red-black front seats your brother gave you.
Are you going to fully re-upholster them with new skin?
Your brothers C43 AMG
Are you going to make a write up with photos of the engine swap and other mods?
Keep up the good work
Last edited by MattCordell; 04-06-2021 at 03:38 PM.
07-28-2020, 05:47 AM
