Hey David,

I also replaced my headliner, here's a post in my thread with the actual manual page to do it.

https://mbworld.org/forums/g-class-w...ml#post8046044

Give my thread a look it's a pain in the *** but doable for sure with patience.

https://mbworld.org/forums/g-class-w...ml#post8066057

 

Hey David,

I haven't updated or reported anything more specific about because I haven't had time to work on it yet! After having to take the last minute trip down to Florida at the beginning of June, I've just been too busy with a bunch of things. The headliner still flaps a ton in the wind, but it's still somehow hanging on. I plan to try to tackle it come January sometime as I'll have more space and a better work area by then, but for now it's fallen down the priority list.

When I do get to it though, I will definitely be posting on it. Ian (Almostordinary)'s post linked above does a really good job detailing the process. It's definitely going to be a headache for sure.

I have service records from the previous 3 owners that show the first owner had the headliner either fixed or replaced at least twice earlier in its life as it was a Florida truck. I think the glue used along with the material itself just wasn't a good match, especially against high humidity high temperature climates. Hopefully after I fix it, this will be the last time it will need to be addressed.

 

Hi Shiann
thank ou for the replay, I went through Ian’s post the task looks terrible!
I have an alcantara headliner, one small area is unglue, I am hesistating to refursh the whole headliner, or injected locally with a small pin some glue...

 

Hi Ian
thank you for your reply, nice job made to get this headliner out of the car... not sure I’m enough expert to dissasemble the seats ...
by the way, did you manage to add bluetooth from the OE head unit?

 

Man it was an effort for sure, just had time on my hands thankfully.

I did order the plug and play aux cable for the 2008 G55 COMAND unit, should have it this weekend then will get a bluetooth connector and see how it goes.

I'll keep ya posted, the FM transmitter bluetooth is just horrible.

 

Hey bud,

I am in the middle of adding the AUX cable to my Command Unit, and for the life of me can not figure out how to remove the radio.

You make it seem like a breeze.

How did you take the top part off?

I started from the bottom and only have access to the two bottom screws to the unit, not sure where to attack next.



Any info would be amazing!

Thanks bud

 

Hah, nice Ian. I posted a reply over at CW. Will copy here for anyone in the future looking for this info:

"For the upper button panel, if it is anything like the 2005, you have to remove the differential switches first by prying it out. 2 clips on each side, but prying from the top or the bottom with a pry tool works well. Just be careful not to damage the AC vent surround pieces. There is a screw under the differential buttons that secures the top button panel to the internal cross bar. After that screw is removed, you can pry the unit out or maybe even push it out from the back side (the 2005 of course is one complete piece top to bottom). Maybe after the switch panel is removed there will be more screws under to remove the radio easily."

In the post you linked above with the picture of the dash apart:

"Here's a picture of the 2005 center stack removed. You can see the top screw location next to the differential rectangular connector on that metal plate. I can't imagine the setup having changed that much between 2005 and 2008 given the dash layout is generally the same."

One additional thing I noticed, the panel clips are on there really tight. It was almost uncomfortable the amount of force you have to pry with to get them to pop out. I don't have a better solution for this and I think breaking things won't be out of the question.

 

Thanks @shiann Got it out and everything working!

Bluetooth and AUX!!

Write up on my thread:
https://mbworld.org/forums/g-class-w...ml#post8198654

 

I've had less and less time the past few weeks to work on the truck, and with the weather turning colder in the Northeast, I wanted to get a few things finished before truck projects are shut down for the winter.

First thing I wanted to tackle was finishing up the front component speaker installation. I had been running my sound system without any front speakers after removing them a few weeks ago to sell to another member, and missed the complete sound.

Removing the factory tweeters and installing aftermarket ones (or replacing OE) is a major headache. I would not advise anyone do this unless your AC vents are already very broken and you plan to either completely repair them, or replace them.

Start by removing the glove box by removing the 4 screws circled in red below:


Use a plastic pry tool to remove the dash endplate panel on the passenger side. Once this piece is removed, you'll have tons of space to access most of the screws that attach the passenger AC vent.


Below is a picture of the dash area after removing the AC Vent to show the screw locations. The lower 2 screws can be easily accessed from behind the dash with a short screw driver, or a flexible attachment. The upper 2 screws are difficult to access as the AC duct is in the way, but you can feel around to find the screw heads. If you're planning on replacing or completely refinishing/fixing the AC vent, you can just use a plastic pry tool at the top of the AC vent (near the windshield) and pry it to break the screw mounting tabs off. Then you can remove the screws much easier as you can see where the screws actually are.


Removing the AC vent on the driver's side is significantly more difficult. Start by removing the trim piece below the dash. Start by prying one end with a plastic pry tool, directing the force straight back. You can see below the position and direction of the panel clips. Pull straight back to remove the piece.

Remove the panel below the steering wheel by first removing the 2 screws behind the dash cosmetic trim panel, circled below in red.


On the bottom of this panel are 3 screws. Remove those also.


Remove the panel by pulling straight back. There are panel clips and also guide bars so only pry and pull straight backwards. After I removed this panel, I just left it dangling as I did not want to remove the ignition wires.


Remove the Styrofoam piece under the steering wheel. There are 2 nuts and 2 long screws. Remove the piece by pulling straight down. The threaded rods at the top of the piece are J hook rods that are loose, so see how they are fixed inside the dash in case they fall out.


From next to the steering wheel, look in the cavity towards the bottom of the AC vent. Move any wire looms out of the way. You will see this hex bolt that attaches the headlight switch panel to a dash bracket. You will have to remove this hex bolt. I used a stubby ratcheting wrench and it worked well, although it is very tight in this area.


Once that hex bolt is removed, you can pry out the headlight switch panel. I used a plastic pry tool, not the screw driver shown. You can see where the metal tabs are holding the piece in place. When the switch panel is removed, you can see where the hex bolt was that you just removed.


To remove the lower screws on the AC vent, I used a flexible screw adapter as shown below. There is very little space in this area so go slow and don't drop the screws after they are removed. You can see the 2 screws below viewed from behind the dash.


For the upper screws, I just used a pry tool and broke the mounting tabs like I did on the passenger side. I honestly don't know how it would be possible to access these screws as there is just so much more stuff on the driver's side dash corner compared to the passenger's side. Also there is no access from the access panel at the end of the dash because the fuse block is located here. I tried removing the fuse block but it was not an easy process. Removing the tweeter is simple by removing 2 screws from on top.


I replaced my front speaker system with a component system from Polk Audio, MM 6502. The 1" tweeters are almost identical in size to the OE tweeters, which was one of my main reasons for selecting this component set. I designed and 3D printed adapter brackets and glued them together.


Here are the tweeters installed using the OE hardware without any modifications to the dash. I, of course, did this on both the passenger and driver sides and ran the tweeter wires down the dash and secured the speaker wires to existing wiring harnesses.


The front door woofer installation, fortunately, is much simpler. Remove the door panels and pull up the weather barrier. As you can see, my weather barriers have seen better days and will eventually be replaced.


I added several layers of sound deadening materials behind the speaker on the inside panel of the door skin. I used 2 layers of butyl/foil based materials, and topped it off with a closed cell foam layer. I covered the entire bottom 24" of the door. I checked the window clearance and did not have any issues.


For mounting the woofer, I cleaned off the speaker mounting area and traced the mounting features using contact paper. The speakers on the front L and R doors are the same part (same mounting locations), but that means the features on the door are not symmetrical/mirrored. They are just slightly different.


Below are the templates I made tracing the features with a black marker on contact paper. I laminated the contact paper onto white printer paper, and then scanned these with a ruler to be able to correctly scale the scanned images in my CAD software.


Designing and 3D printing the speaker adapters was pretty straight forward. The upper surface of the speaker should be positioned 1.5" offset from the door surface, exactly the same as the factory speaker height. Below are all of the components to install along with all the stainless hardware.


I wired in the same 2pin connectors that I've used in a few other places to make the speakers removable without cutting. I ended up using foam and tesa tape on all of the wires in the door to prevent them from vibrating during driving or speaker operation.


I ran the woofer wires through the door wire bundle. This was pretty easy on both sides using a stiffer wire and pulling the speaker wire through. After checking wire lengths and plugging in the speakers, I installed everything. I did not use the supplied speaker covers as they would not fit, nor were they necessary.


I installed the crossovers in areas that they could be relatively easily accessed, as the Polk MM6502 crossovers had an adjustable tweeter setting.


Sound system update:

After installing the front component speaker set, I had to reconfigure the amplifiers. I decided to completely remove the subwoofer, and drive the front component set off of one 4ch amp bridged to 2 channels, fully powered at 125W RMS @ 4ohms per channel. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the sound, but the system is definitely missing the low low end with a sub. I will continue to tweak this and see if adding the bench subwoofer back into the mix is the correct move, and lowering the supplied power to the front speaker set to 75WRMS @ 4ohms. Also to note, a full DSP or DSP features are ABSOLUTELY required when tuning the G-class speakers. The system sounded like garbage out of the box and took a ton of tweaking. After time aligning the system front to rear and applying some digital sound corrections for the space (my cheap Kenwood Single DIN had all of these features built in, so most aftermarket head units should also, but a real dedicated DSP would still be the best), then it finally sounded good again.

Alternatively, another member on the forums said that you can fit an Alpine PWE-S8 under the Passenger's seat if you remove all the phone electronics and box. This is very attractive as it is an 8" subwoofer + amplifier and connecting it to my system would be very easy overall, as long as it fits. I may look into this during the winter if I cannot find a good way to add the bench subwoofer back into the mix without spending more $.

Side project: For my front door panels, the lower door pocket securing screws did nothing. The area was completely broken and didn't secure the bottom of the door panel, nor did it secure the bottom of the door pocket.


I took a few quick measurements and designed/3D printed a few larger washer-ish pieces that fit into the door cutouts. They worked great and now I can attach the bottom of the door panel and actually use the door pockets.


When cleaning the inside of the front passenger door, I found a few random pieces in the bottom. Any idea what they are? I'm guessing a window spring guide, standoff for something, and part of a wire guide wheel for the power window.


Last mod for a little bit: Winter is approaching and I was concerned that the OE Pirelli Scorpion Zero (old style) wouldn't cut it in the snow. Being they are all seasons, they were never going to be good in the winter/snow, I just didn't have a good reference how good or bad they would be. Also, I've always had a dedicated winter tire setup for all of my other cars using Bridgestone Blizzaks, so having good tires for the winter months was important.

In this case, I knew we would be doing several road trips during the winter months to warmer climates, so using a true winter tire wouldn't make any sense. Nor would getting another set of all-seasons as the grip level would just not be there, nor would they look great.

Here's a last picture of the truck with the OE Pirelli Scorpion Zero tires in 285/55R18. These tires were dated "0312", which is Week 3 of 2012, so plenty old and showing signs of dry rot. Also replaced the spare that was the original Yokohama Geolandar H/T spare from 2005, which had never been driven on.


Got these beefy tires mounted today but ran of out of time for any photographs. Will take some tomorrow. BF Goodrich KO2's in LT285/60R18. These should do great in the winter months, give a slight 1" lift being larger profile, last a long time and many driving miles, drive much quieter than the Pirelli's that were very loud on the highway, and also be significantly better off-road! I mounted 5 including the spare on the back.


I'll be joining a few other Northeast W463 owners on a Mini-Treffen this weekend so jumping right in and putting these tires to the test!

Stay tuned for some off roading photos and more updates to come!

 

Got to take the G off roading this weekend on some logging/hunting trails in the Eastern CT/RI area with a small group from the ClubWagen forum. It was a ton of fun meeting some other G owners and getting the truck dirty and crawling over some rocks. It's impressive to see what the truck can do with the real only modification done being slightly upsized A/T tires. Got a chance to exercise the diff locks and low range, as well as some suspension articulation. Didn't stop too much for pictures while on the more challenging sections, but did take a time lapse of most of the off road sections and a few videos also.

 

Looks like a ton of fun, once you get these trucks off road, you just can't wait to get out there again.

Nice cross section of G's too!

Question, does that Toyota have a Land Rover badge on the hood?

 

Agreed. I think these trucks really need to be driven off road to truly be appreciated. It really is impressive how easily the G soaks up the rocks, roots, and angles. Even some of the stuff I did a double take on, the G made it over with ease. Only the really gnarly stuff did I need to use the lockers, and that was probably my own lack of faith and not a limit to the trucks capability.

The badge on the Land Cruiser is styled like the Land Rover badges, but says "Over Land".

The group was a lot of fun and very interesting. I only wish we had more time to hang around and talk cars but we decided to keep things socially distant. The 2 door SWB manual convertible is mostly a beach cruiser and is really nicely restored. The dark gray W463 is a 2006 with a rack, ladder, rear shelf, fridge in the back, and much more. He also has a Wolf, as well as a 2000 G500 that is also modified for off roading. He also used to have a 460 4 door LWB, so many many years and miles in the G. My G55, of course, was probably never intended to be an off roader. Most likely the first time the lockers and low range had been used for real, and most likely the dirtiest it has ever been. The low hanging exhaust tips did have me a little nervous, so that is something I may modify in the future to tuck it up into the frame, but that is for way later when I swap out the side steps for a real set of rock sliders.

Hoping I get some adventures in the snow this winter and maybe even some time to get out on the slopes.

I took a time lapse of the trail run we took and uploaded it here. Enjoy!

 

great vid! Wish someone dived into that puddle at 3:10, there's enough trucks to get anyone out that gets stuck lol.

I think Im going to find some snow up here in the PNW soon to get out in.

Also great work on the audio system!!

 

I was SUPER tempted to dive in but being last in the convoy with everyone else avoiding it, I figured it was best not to do that, also not knowing how deep the lake was!

The audio system sounds good overall, I just have to address a slight feedback/noise issue due to me not using twisted pair cables for the front component set, and I also want to add back in a subwoofer to the system to round out the bottom end. I think that's something I'll probably tackle over the holiday season when I'm down in Florida visiting with the in-laws. A DSP is a must for tuning the system so adds more complexity to modifying the system for sure.

Let us know how the KO2's do in the cold/snow! We may start seeing some of the fluffy stuff here in the North East soon, so getting ready for some adventures for sure.

 

......Alternatively, another member on the forums said that you can fit an Alpine PWE-S8 under the Passenger's seat if you remove all the phone electronics and box. This is very attractive as it is an 8" subwoofer + amplifier and connecting it to my system would be very easy overall, as long as it fits. I may look into this during the winter if I cannot find a good way to add the bench subwoofer back into the mix without spending more $......


I can confirm that this does fit neatly under the passenger seat if one is to remove all the teleaid components and wiring.

 

Hey Juice,

That is great news! Do you have any pictures of what you removed and the sub in place?

I have my system set up now 'under powering' the front component set at 75W/channel and correctly powering the subwoofer at 150W, but the Kicker 6.75" leaves something to be desired. Adding the Alpine 8" under the passenger seat, with the bass knob installed in the cluster somewhere, is an ideal solution for me so I can install a fixed mounted compressor in the OE sub compartment under the bench seat!

 

please excuse the dirty carpet and the missing fuse box cover. Like the drivers side there is only one plug that connects the passenger set to the car wiring harness. The teleaid stuff mounted with four little m6 posts, the rear two I left alone and the front two I cut off with a dremel so the sub would sit flat on the carpet. You can also see where I taped into the rear speaker wires.

fits fairly neatly under the seat.

 

oh and I removed the plastic HVAC fitting and pipe that terminated right under the seat also but thats optional

 

Thanks Juice for the info! This is a project I will definitely be tackling in the spring time when it gets warmer outside.

 

I haven't paid a lot of attention to what is under the seat but is all the stuff really for the old school phone? seems like a lot of ... junk Do you have any photo of the stuff you pulled out?

 

I didnt take a before photo, but yes there is a lot under there indeed!

 

Wow it's been a long time since an update. I've been on here and ClubWagen sporadically since November but have been swamped with work, buying/renovating a house, visiting family down in FL, more house renovating, and other things. I've been driving the G a ton since the tire change but the projects have been slow.

Today I hit a milestone with the G. I purchased roughly 1 year ago now, but have only really been driving for the past 6 months. So far I've put over 10k miles on the truck, roughly 900 gallons of gas averaging a smooth 11.6mpg. Parked the truck in the driveway today after running some errands to see this:


Still young at heart and I plan to keep the G for a long time.

Back in December the G saw its first real snow storm.



For the Holidays I went to visit family down in Florida. I drove the G down to meet the wife and kid who went down 2 weeks earlier. Surprisingly, the G made a very comfortable road trip car. I did NJ to FL in 16 hours including a 4 hour nap at a random rest stop and 2 hours of traffic around DC. Took the most direct route and hovered around 75mph the whole way down.

Stats for the trip down:
Fuel Stops: 4
Gallons: 90
Average MPG: 11.6

Brought a few projects for the G down with me to FL, but didn't get that much done as I wanted to spend time with family and enjoy some time off.

I did, however, get a chance to install my rear view mirror/lcd/backup camera/2ch dashcam. I have another model in my Volvo and have loved it so far, so saw this one on Amazon made by Vantop (H610) and wanted to try it out due to the low price, good specs, and good reviews. The things is GREAT. HIGHLY recommended for any older G owner who wants the safety/convenience of a front/rear dashcam setup, as well as a rear view camera. I really didn't want to add a permanent screen above the central AC vents as I don't think it looks right, so this really solved all of my issues/wants.

Installation is very straight forward. I used an add-a-fuse under the passenger glove box and used a generic dashcam hardwire kit. I ran the video wire all the way to the back cargo area by tucking it into the side of the headliner (I'll fix this later when I eventually drop the headliner to redo the fabric).



I placed the camera under the 3rd brake light on the inside of the truck as mounting to the exterior door doesn't make much sense, nor does mounting it super low by the license plate. Mounting on the inside, however, does have some drawbacks as nighttime vision isn't the best as the IR LEDs reflect into the cabin and do not light up behind the vehicle, but I plan to solve this at a later date by adding pod flood lights in place of the current reverse and rear fog lights.


I couldn't get the video cable and the small connector to fish through the rear door corrugated bundle, so I just ran the wire on the outside of the bundle and used Tesa tape to prevent any rubbing.


Was really glad I got to escape the Northeast weather for a little bit and enjoy this Florida view. Life is tough down here in the winter!


Packed up the wife, kid, way too many Christmas presents, and a month's worth of stuff in the back of the G and made our way back up to NJ. Everything back in the cargo area was really well arranged, and just draped a few cushion cloths across the top so things wouldn't slide/bang around. This was probably the best use for the rear view camera/mirror/screen. I could load up the back as high as I wanted, but still had unobstructed visibility out the back due to the camera. I think for anyone with an overland setup, or kids, or dogs, etc in the back, this is a gamechanger and no brainer.


Since I've been doing new (to us) home renovations for the past few months, that has meant lots of trips to Home Depot. Came out one day and found a W463A parked next to me. Great to see the differences, but the similarities all still there in the new model.


Also used the G to shuttle some floor tiles between the warehouse and the renovation house. I wasn't quite able to gather enough courage to allow them to fork-lift a mini-pallet into the bed of the G, but loaded them up individually and strapped them down. This was roughly 1200lbs worth of tile.


Also found one of these Ariens ST824's on Facebook Marketplace with a blown motor not too far away for a good price. Loaded it up in the back of the G with folding ramps from Harbor Freight and it was smooth sailing. Wish I was able to grab a picture of everything loaded in the back but was too rushed. The sellers were looking at me all confused when I was throwing everything in the back of the G like most people would do with a work truck. I did put down moving blankets everywhere though so no damage done to the interior. Found out later that it is a early 90's model in really good condition. Took a few hours to drop in a Harbor Freight Predator 212cc to replace the original motor that had half the block missing, and this thing eats through snow, just in time for spring in the Northeast! I'll probably do a full teardown/cleaning/nut+bolt restoration in the summer when time allows.


Had plenty of snow adventures also. We got 18-24" in the beginning of February and the G loved every second of it.


Drove up to the renovation house in ~18" of fresh unplowed snow and the G with the 285/60R18 KO2's made easy work of the snow. Ended up getting stuck on the driveway with no momentum and floating on the snow. Note that the snow was up to the running boards, so pretty nuts.


I had my wife take a short video of the drive over to the new house making fresh tracks:

Since I upsized my spare tire also to 285/60R18, the OE tire carrier didn't fit anymore, so I've been rocking just the tire for several months now. Found a few other members over on ClubWagen talking about aftermarket tire covers and they pointed me to this semi-rigid one from Boomco linked here. I had to get the upsized one for a 32" tire, but the product overall looks great and fits perfect. The price is pretty reasonable for what you're getting (compared to OE Mercedes prices) so I'm pretty happy with the purchase.




And finally, today, I was able to set aside some time to adjust the rear cargo door of the G. My door has never closed correctly and the top of the door never sealed right (enough that a pressure washer would cause a waterfall in the back). I'm pretty sure this happened when the previous owner backed into a tree lightly, damaged the original tire carrier, put a dent in the rear door, and subsequently pushed the lower hinge inwards. I've always had trouble closing the cargo door and would really have to slam it hard. Below you can sort of see the top of the door sticking out past the body.


Took apart the rear corner and took the opportunity to remove the CD changer and brackets (non-functional for me now anyway with the head unit/amp/speaker swap). In the end, I had to loosen all the bolts, close the cargo door, and use a hammer on the inside of the hinge with a scrap block to push the hinge out. This took several tries and guessing to get it right, but I ended up moving the lower hinge outwards ~1/4" for the door to sit in line with the rest of the body. After that, I reset the hinge/latch location to close tightly, then set the alignment blocks tightly so the door doesn't rattle on the bumpy stuff.


It was dark by the time I was done, but this thing closes so smoothly now. The thud when shutting it is solid and it closes right every time now. It's hard to see, but the body line is now really close, if not perfect, so I'm really pleased I was able to fix this issue finally after a year.


I've got lots of G projects in the pipeline now that I have my own garage to work out of and lots of new tools, but I'll have to balance that with needed projects/maintenance on the Volvo (2005 S60 T5M with lots of mods), lots of promised projects on the house, general life things, and of course, real work. Hope to get a lot of things done before the spring really hits and we can start going outside again now with there being a light at the end of the Covid quarantine tunnel.

Cheers everyone! Happy 2021 and happy trekking/wrenching with your G!

 

Sounds like you guys were having a lot of fun driving through that snow...

 

Love it!

Not a car in sight..... "Hold my beer" LOL.

Dude great progress, I've been slow as well on the mods, kind of got the truck where I want it with the exception of new Scheel Mann seats, which I make take the plunge and grab this summer.

Man I miss that drive from NYC to Florida for the holidays, living in the PNW its a two day excursion to get back to California and the beaches aren't even close to as nice.

Also great buy on that cover! I actually may snag one to put on the tire mounted on the roof.

Think it would fit on a 305/65R-18

Good stuff!

 

I was definitely having lots of fun. The drive to the new house is really short, maybe 5 minutes, so no time to really play. Also, I didn't want to get in the way of the real snow plows actually working.

In my younger/single days, I would have just taken off and spent the day snowboarding with everyone else stuck at home, but I had to shovel and continue the house renovations so we could finally move in.

If you end up going with the Scheel Mann seats, let me know how they are. The OE seats definitely leave something on the table in terms of comfort and adjustability so I'm looking for other options. Also will need to do something custom in the rear for the kid's seat since he's the size of a 5 year old now at 3.

I'm sort of in the same boat with how the truck sits. Lots of small projects to finish up and a few suspension clunks to investigate, but overall the truck is in a really good state now and really just enjoying it as I gear up to fix the last few things on the Volvo in prep to sell in the summer and get a more practical car for the wife to drive. (she can't drive a manual and the G is a little too large for her to be comfortable)

The drive down to Florida is a tough one, but in the coming years, we'll take a lot more trips down, so will make several day road trips out of them. Stopping at beach towns along the way down, and taking the inland mountain routes on the way back up. Maybe a road trip out west is in order in the coming years so I can wander around the Rockies and the west coastline.

For the Boomco cover, they make a completely soft ones and have many other generic options/graphics. I specified the 32" size, but for your 305/65R18, you'll have to specify the 34" size or something along those lines.

​​​​​​​Comments and suggestions are all welcome!