1998 Mercedes CL600; Flip, Drive, or Part Out

[Jorik]

I love the color on this one. I would completely restore it if I had the money. This is an amazing car to drive and to own. The engine might be a little problematic if not taken care of properly but the rest of the car is flawless. It's probably the most comfortable V12 I have ever driven. Paradoxically, it was before that the best cars were manufactured, nowadays they are expendable in order for us to buy new ones. I made a tour of https://www.scrapi.com/scrap-my-car-near-me and the old cars had the best parts for long term usage.

[Beagle]

I'm going to have to look into this sell a car thing... you say you get money for it?

Well I guess it was fun while it lasted! I am currently very interested in older Mercedes cars. They seem fascinating for some reason.

Ford's 4.6 looks very much like the '74 450SL I had but the driveshaft donuts made me a little crazy. They definitely had impressive tech.

[BBR]

Well I guess it was fun while it lasted! I am currently very interested in older Mercedes cars. They seem fascinating for some reason.

[CTX-SLPR]

Left on a truck this morning, sold it to RENNtech (yes, the Mercedes tuning company) in Florida for as much as I paid for it originally after pulling the seats, the seatbelt presenters, all the power windows, and the power trunk release out of the car. Cost me ~$400-600 in parts to get it enjoyable to drive and a bit more complete in an attempt to sell it whole and running. Overall I'm super pleased!

[CTX-SLPR]

Keeps taunting me. Every time I declare I'm going to take it apart for some offense it clears itself up. I've been driving it a bit as due to COVID-19 the DMV has been closed till next week so I couldn't register it if I wanted to.

I think I'm just going to part it out as I doubt I could get the $4500 I'd need to make it worth my while given the DMV back fees.

[CTX-SLPR]

Interestingly the Mercedes shares a battery with my '12 Genesis so when the battery crapped out on the Genesis nearly leaving the family stranded at the park I just swapped the batteries.
The battery had obviously lost a cell or something as after charging it up I could get the Mercedes to start but the dash lit up like a Christmas tree. I just bought an AGM for the daily driver Genesis as the kids have left the door open, trunk open, interior lights on, etc. and run the battery down about 5 times in the last 2 years so deeper reserve and better recharge recovery. The Mercedes now has the regular battery again and I'll start putzing with it again at some point.

[CTX-SLPR]

A bit later than I planned but honestly that was a very nice drive. Needs an alignment and probably the tires balanced but I'm going to call the car a very very nice cruiser. I still haven't put the rear interior back in, still messing with stuff back there, so there was this very subtle almost jet turbine like whistle coming from something that was actually very soothing and no problems holding 70mph. My "restore meter" is almost clicked over to put more money into it and drive it.

[CTX-SLPR]

Got the rear window sorted out. I really like that cable and slider stud system for moving the glass around as it goes through a fairly complex series of motions to tuck into the quarter panel.



The clip on the lower stud popped off as I was adjusting the glass since the whole regulator mechanism adjusts in the body so it makes a good seal. Ended up having to go to the same dude as the rest of the parts to get one out of his stash of clips (he has three Mercedes now and a few more in the past) to get that to stay on.

https://photos.google.com/u/1/photo/AF1QipO4nBHxiDOlLLwBinQltozwzKId4mPRuxN6Kzu4

Took it for a short drive as I ran out of daylight and don't want to drive too much in the dark just yet. Took it on the same loop of stop signs, drainage gutters, and speed bumps. Most of the bonks and definitely all of the driveshaft knocking are gone. It still sounds like I have something loose in the back end but it might just be because I still have the rear seats stacked in the trunk while I continue to wrestle with the rear headrests on my way to the rear roller blind.

Overall the car drives a bit like my Suburban... it's heavy and the throttle has a fair bit of travel making it feel a bit sluggish off of the line unless you are intentional about it. Makes for an interesting mix of cars to drive with my Genesis sedan having a fairly aggressive throttle (throttle by wire) and an 8spd transmission making it rather sprightly off of the line despite only having a 3.8L V6. My Suburban is even heavier (3/4 ton 4x4) and is pretty gentle off of the line unless you get into it and even then the 454cid doesn't rev and has 191K miles so isn't going anywhere in a hurry; it does however go over just about any hill trailer or no without much complaint. My Riviera with it's 252cid Turbo6 is a bit bipolar, pretty soft if you're just easing into it and can get wild in a hurry with the turbo kicking in. Shelter at home also means I'm not driving that much either so each car takes a bit to remember how it's wants to be treated. Tomorrow we'll take her up to speed on a long surface road and perhaps the freeway up to 70-75mph after I get the side cladding back on.

[CTX-SLPR]

But the exhaust back in last night and started it up just to listen for gross leaks, all good. Hopefully get the suspension bleed today so I can put it back on the ground.

I'll get pictures of repairing the window regulator today as that's next on the list of have to fix and the part is supposed to be here. The window regulator is pretty darn cool, I'm tempted to try and engineer my own for the Riviera to replace it's Rube Goldberg linkage that does almost the same motion.

[CTX-SLPR]

So after the test drive I still had some "thumping" under acceleration and while softer the rear end still clomped a bit over speed bumps. Decided to dig into the driveshaft to check the carrier bearing...
Think I found the problem.... That's supposed to be a rubber mount for the carrier bearing and in one piece.

Good thing I had bought the shaft out of the S600 with a good carrier bearing mount, but again the shaft length difference between the sedan and the coupe is all in the rear shaft so off that thing had to come.

Wasn't too hard to get off or onto the shaft.

Took a few tries to get the shaft back together in phase. Still have to put the exhaust system back together and I'm pretty tired tonight. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get that knocked out as well as bleeding the rear suspension system after the rear sphere swap. The car's going to stay put till I can put the rear window back together as soon as I get the replacement movement block to get the regulator back in action.

[CTX-SLPR]

Came out looking like a coal miner today but I got that second accumulator sphere replaced, ended up having to pull a significant section of the rear suspension control plumbing out to get it out though. Cheeky thing was just hanging there looking very easy to get to but you can't get a wrench to most of the plumbing connections so out the system had to come to get it apart, the new sphere in, and then back in. Also got the better rotors in and the rounder tires (with associated wheels) on. Again dang you MB! Each different style of wheel it seems has it's own length lug bolt which are a pain in and of themselves.

Now just have to wait to borrow a (dang you MB) specific cup socket to get the oil filter lid off and I'll be able to put it back together and try it out. I've been annoyed enough at this to not tackle the interior bits yet as part of me is thinking that once I take them out I might not be inclined to put them back in again...

[CTX-SLPR]

Picked up the wheels and one of the accumulator spheres yesterday and got it on. Turns out he's a friend of a friend so a good contact to make. He also has a lathe and a shop press and I have a mill so we might trade work on each others machines. Turns out he's pulled the engine and transmission so is just selling what he can before the junk man takes it for scrap value. Paid a bit more and picked up a bunch of minor things like headlight wipers, trim fasteners, and an intact trunk battery cover.

The accumulator was shot so glad I got the replacement. Since I had the wheels off I dug into the brakes, glad I did as something looked funny. Best I can tell, new OEM pad on minimum thickness machined rotors. Massive lip on both sides of the rotors so looks like they were turned or the previous owner just tossed new pad on them. Also two of the pad retaining pins had backed out on one side so get the chance to firmly seat them. Looking forward to repacking the wheel bearings while I'm in there. Guy will sell me the rotors in exchange for my old ones just to keep the car stoppable. Also since he's pulled the rest of the drivetrain if I've got a carrier bearing issue (bit of a wheel hop like vibration at ~10-13mph) I can swap that one out too.

[Russell]

Owning a 12v car is on my list. As long as you don't think you will loose too much money I say go for it!

[CTX-SLPR]

Well now that the Riviera is mostly operational as far as welding and other under the car work I've swapped the Mercedes into the garage after knocking out the wife's front brakes on her Genesis. Could have gone another few months to be sure but I've had the parts for a bit and decided to knock it out. Also got show my boys how it all works and how you have to push the fluid back into the master cylinder to fit the new pads. Good time!

The Mercedes is in the garage on jack stands so I can trade wheels with a guy in town who is parting out a 92 600SEL (the sedan version) and seeing if I can't get this thing better analyzed for what's wrong by swapping the flat spotted tires out. It'll put me back on 16in wheels but at this point I just want something truly round. Also going to get rear nitrogen spheres (car's suspension works by having rear hydraulic rams and external spheres that do the damping. Quite sure both of mine are shot as the car rides buttery smooth over bumps in the front but rock hard in the back. Also might have a trashed bushing or two so going to inspect what's back there and see what I can try to replace with some other used parts to keep this thing on the cheap.

Market for it has tanked of course since hardly anyone has the kind of budget to buy one of these so I'm improving the marketability and wondering if I should just title and register it and tack that on to the price and drive it. It seems like it'll pass smog. Still have to keep it under the $5000 cap.

[milner351]

I had a mercedes diesel for a whlie when fuel was $4+ a gallon. I found out quickly that they require lots of special tools to work on, eventually I sold it after learning a few hard lessons, lost some money on it, but never has education been free! V12 - not many of us can say we've owned one of those!