After having the new hood pad sitting in my garage for a good six months, I finally got around to tackling replacing the sagging one on my 84 300SD.

As you can see from the last pic - the tools of the trade for this job are some good 3M products, a lot of drop cloths to catch debris and avoid over spray of aerosol adhesive, blue low stick painter's tape, and a lot of elbow grease with a little 2" plastic putty knife (which won't scratch the paint).

I came up with a little rig / platform using the lift and my multi-adjustable aluminum ladder which I secured with ratcheting straps to be able to have the hood in the 90* position and not have to step on inner fenders. Worked pretty well.

A lot of the real old adhesive wasn't coming off, but I definitely got all the old traces of the old pad.

The test fitting of the new pad revealed that about a half an inch of pad would extend over and cover some of the good under hood paint surface on the left, right and top of the hood. I really didn’t want to spray this strip so I masked off the pad with blue tape about a 1" barrier on those sides so it would not receive adhesive. That allowed me to spray the underside of the hood in a well defined area and not half to worry about bleed over to the good under hood paint surfaces.

Also during the test fitting I noticed a little "v" cut at the top of the new pad for alignment, but nothing to guide me on the bottom to be sure I was centered. I just used a piece of blue painters tape at the bottom of the pad and made an alignment mark on it with a sharpie. I put a corresponding mark on the blue tape that was masking off the bottom of the hood.

That worked perfectly. After following the adhesive directions (3 coats, 1 of which is applied perpendicular to the first two coats on both the hood and the pad - then let it set for 5 minutes to tack up) I placed the pad by centering the middle section according to my top and bottom alignment marks, then worked the pad from center right and then center left. There is a nice little lip at the bottom of the hood in a few places that you can do a little tuck for the pad. Heads up – you’ll need two cans of adhesive. I ran the first can out just as I was applying my last coat.

I then rolled the pad with a spare can of adhesive (a paint roller flexed too much) and I worked the pad to be good and tight against the hood. I let it set in the vertical for 24 hours and I've driven the car the following two days - so far so good!

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__________________
~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net

Nice job! Now thats how to properly install a hood pad!

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Wow, nice job and good work on the photos. Thanks!

wow great shop. is that your home shop. i love that fact that its so neat and so well done
mike

Wow, way clean shop. Someday, maybe my shop will be refurbished etc.

Mine was originally a Blacksmith shop, that is BEFORE automobiles roamed the earth. Not built this century or the last, probably late 1800's. Several pictures of it in the teens when converted to a shop, lot's of Model T's around.

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raMBow

1999 E300DT Obsydian Black Metallic, Heated Full Leather Parchment options, E2, K2, 136,000+, best 36.5 mpg - GP's 12-04 & 11-12 Zero Stuck
2010 Honda Odyssey - The BrideMobile - best 26.5
(2) 2005 Honday Accord- (1 -Corporate 1 - Personal) - 110,000 4-cyl 30mpg
2000 VW Golf GLS TDI, Upsolute Chip (sold to Brother, now 300+k on it) 48.5 mpg like clock work
1987 Honda CRX HF - Sold 87,000 always over 50 mpg Max 67 mpg

The lift was the final piece for the garage. It takes a lot of real estate (but can lift 9000lbs!). I had it installed about 2 months ago though I haven't had too many opportunities yet to use it.

The pictures below are when I did my first "lift" using my W140

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__________________
~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net

wouldnt it of been easier to remove the hood and grill surround and lay the hood on a protected surface to lay it on?

I have never realized it was that much work to replace a hood pad.
And I have replaced quite a few...

__________________

79 240D my current toy
42 years a Diesel addict

240D sold
250SE sold
220D sold
280C sold
280S sold
300D (2) sold
300CD sold
300DT sold
300SD sold
380SL sold

Nice garage! Love the lift!

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Good job, I also did mine about 2 weeks ago. I was a little less prepared, but only one can of adhesive seemed adequate for three good coats on both the pad and the hood. I basically just spread newspapers across the fenders and put a chair on each side of the car to help me reach the center. I put my 10 year old daughter on one side to hold it steady while I pressed it on with my hands. I let it dry overnight, and it seems fine. I've driven about 2000 miles since. It does seem to reduce the noise in the car quite a bit.

Yes that is one sweet garage and neat as a racing shop!

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1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair

hood pad won't stick...

Gee, nice job, but seems lacking. If I brought my car by you could do mine too then maybe the pictures would be better?

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2000 C230 Kompressor "Frosty"

2007 PT Cruiser
2001 VW TDI Beetle
1999 Landrover Discovery II
1971 Corvette

Gone: 97 Cabrio, 83 240D, 93 VW Eurovan, 95 Volvo 850, 93 Chevy Astro Van, 77 VW Bus, 99 VW Jetta, 74 VW Bus

Well done and great shop! Wish I had a lift.

I decided to take the hood off of my 300D for the work. The hood hinges turn out to have hooks so that they hold the hood from falling into the windshield even after the four screws have been removed. I cleaned the edges of the hood first and outlined the screw heads with black marker so I could get them back correctly. Next, I disconnected the windshield washer lines.

My wife helped me lift the hood off and onto a couple of padded sawhorses. Then I cleaned the underside of the hood, using a plastic scraper and adhesive remover for the old adhesive (it attacks the paint, by the way). I also cleaned the surface of dirt and diesel soot with 409 cleaner and rinsed it with a damp cloth.

After I laid the new pad on the hood, I weighted it down with convenient heavy things (batteries, etc) and folded the pad in half. This exposed half of the hood and half of the pad. I sprayed both with the 3M adhesive and after allowing time to dry, carefully folded the sticky half back onto the hood. I rolled the pad with a wooden pastry roller from my wife's kitchen tools (shhhh!) and then repeated for the other half.

After allowing the glue to bond overnight, I sneaked the roller back where it belonged and enlisted my wife's help in putting the hood back on its hinges. I had no trouble getting the hood properly aligned so that it would close. The pad has been on the car for six weeks now. Although I notice no difference in engine noise, the hood does stay much cooler since it is insulated from the heat of the engine.

Jeremy

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to align the hood (I didn't think about your trick of marking the bolt positions).

__________________
~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net