Nice Work...Nice car!

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83 500 SEC Euro 198K

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Here is an update:

Here is the engine bay before the cleaning. During and after pictures will follow tomorrow. Nice and clean, huh! :



Also, received the wheels I'll be using on this car for a while. They are AMG Aero 1's. (17" ET11). When I paint the car (if I still have these wheels then) I will be getting them all refinished black with a polished lip:



Here is a picture of whats to come in the next few weeks, can you spot all of the differences?:



Enjoy guys! Look for another update shortly!

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Hey everyone,

The latest piece of the puzzle arrived today. It was black, but I took care of that.

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Here is the update for today.

My main goal was to "Defederalize" the front and rear bumpers. Basically when a lot of these cars were imported, in order to keep the Euro bumpers a piece of metal was attached to the stock bumper beams. All of the ones I have seen, including mine, look like something I made in my backyard. They are poorly constructed, and I don't believe serve any other purpose other than adding 20lbs to each bumper.

Front end disassembled:


Here are a few pictures of the QUALITY engineering that went into them:

Nice cuts!


Great welds!


And excellent rust prevention!


While I was under the car, I ripped out the remains of the backyard emissions testing work-around.


The rear bumper was easy, its very easy to remove, and the supports were only held on with bolts.

The front, however, was less cooperative (Big thanks to my friend for cutting it out for me!):


While I had the front bumper apart, I decided I was going to "refurbish" the lights. I decided to start with the Fog Lights.

One Fog Disassembled:


Eventually I was going to run HID's in the Fog Lights, and being that HID bulbs are much longer (see below picture) than standard H3 bulbs, I had to do some modifications.


I had some old busted 190e headlights laying around, so I decided to steal some parts off it. I took the bulb "cover" off and hacked it up. On a headlight, it has prongs that extend outwards, I just trimmed them and bent them to shape. The result was a slight longer bulb "cover" which would work perfect for HIDs later:


One fog light done. I cleaned the glass, resprayed the inside of the surround. Polished the chrome reflector, and repainted the lens clips. The difference is minimal, but it will be all of the little things coming together which will make this car great. I am not leaving out any details. The result is a much brighter, more clear, newer looking fog light.

"Refurbished" Right


"Refurbished" Bottom


I'll finish up the other fog light tomorrow, and get the bumper back on and start with the headlights and corner lights. Until then, ENJOY!

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Sweet. Good looker you got there.



I spy some tint and lowering springs....




You going to paint the lower cladding body color?

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

Yeah, when I paint the car in a month or two I will paint match the cladding and bumpers.

If I get really bored until then I might just spray paint it dark blue to see how it looks, haha.

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Is the car Midnight Blue?



or is it black?

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

Midnight Blue.

I will probably do a thorough color change to black though.

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lol, I also just spotted Euro Tails on your chop.



Gotta get dark amber front corners too....


Or smoked, they look mighty fine on SECs.




Midnight blue is one of my favorite colors.


Our first MB was midnight blue.

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

you better bring that or the 190E to the next GTG.

The car already has Euro Ambers.

Which 190e?

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Jack has made me (and my cut-off wheel famous)

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1976 Mercedes Benz 300D
1987 Mercedes Benz 300TD sedan
1984 Mercedes Benz SL300D turbodiesel
2001 Dodge Ram 3500 4x4 Dually Cummins Diesel
1974 30\' Uniflite \"Salty Dog\" sportfisherman powered by (2) 617 951 MB turbodiesels

Hopefully you'll make millions!

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Despite spending a lot of the day on this, I don't have too many pictures. Basically today I gave the headlights the same treatment as the fog lights. Completely disassemble and clean/polish/paint/etc the various pieces. Its just one of the many little things that will eventually make this car something to really be proud of.

Here is one of the headlights before:


And here is one of them after:


It was a rather rainy and dreary day, so I didn't any pictures of it back together. I will for sure have some tomorrow. I will also be installing some 6000K headlights and re-aiming both the headlights and fog lights. I will make tomorrows work a bit of a DIY for those who want to know. ENJOY!

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Here is a little dinner time update.

Been working on getting the HID's in the headlights.

Spent a while trying to decide where to mount the ballasts.

I stole some brackets from my 2.6:


I cut and bent them until I had the right size and shape:


Repainted:


Installation location will be using the second screw which holds the fender on. It is a great place to mount them on these cars. Don't mind the gross engine bay in these two next shots:


With the ballast installed:


How it looks color wise. The bulbs it had in it when I purchased it were a very nice pair of H4s, and I thought they looked good and were pretty white, but they really don't look nice next to the HIDs.


Here's what the cutoff looks like, wont be doing any blinding of other drivers :


I just need to get the wires from the ballast into the housings next, I can't find my drill battery to make a hole in the backing for the rubber gasket. I'll find it soon enough though, haha.

From there its onto the fogs! Look for an update later!

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