X204 Mercedes-Benz GLK 350 Manual Swap

This is my 2011 GLK 350:

It's based on the W204 C-Class and came from the factory with the 722.9 7 speed automatic transmission. The donor for this project was a 2008 C300 optioned with the 6 speed manual transmission. 

As this car is based on the W204, there were provisions for everything related to the manual transmission. The firewall insulation had a precut section for the manual pedal box, there were 2 holes in the firewall for clutch hydraulics, there were extra holes drilled and tapped in the unibody for varying lengths of transmissions, literally everything was bolt in. 

So in about 9 hours I went from this:

To this:

As of right now the car starts as long as I have the automatic shifter mechanism plugged in, and goes through all of the gears with no screeching from the computers. I'm currently waiting for the driveshaft to arrive as I forgot to purchase it from the donor C300, and I'm also waiting for my J2534 device to attempt to start coding the computers from automatic to manual.

I'm mainly starting this thread so people have a different google result other than "can't be done too many computers" or "can be done but will cost a bajillion dollars" when they want to swap their W/X204. Once I get it coded I will list out the modules and addresses that need changed and a final parts list. 

Any questions ask away, and thanks for reading!

That's awesome! Having parted out (an automatic) c300, I'm impressed that you could do anything on one in 9 hours. Worthy goal and should make an awesome driver. 

This is fascinating.  Tell me more about what you're using to re-educate HAL9000

In reply to wae :

Xentry passthru and a Chinese J2534 device. You can buy clones of Mercedes C3/C4 multiplexers on ebay to use with DAS and the full Xentry suite, but I was advised that for just coding modules passthru is all that is needed. My J2534 should be here today, so I'll have a better idea of how well this will work out later.  

9 hours! That's facemelting speed. This is too damn cool! 

I agree with the others that 9 hours seems like warp speed.  Is this one 4WD?  

In reply to bigeyedfish :

It was really simple, EVERYTHING was bolt on. When I say everything I mean everything. Even the brake fluid reservoir comes with the provisions for the clutch line. 

No it's RWD. I don't think Mercedes makes an AWD manual transmission. 

Dude! That's awesome. I would manual swap every car I own if I could. (so far so good...)

Cool stuff.  I like this body.  Its a tidy package.  Like an upscale Subaru Forester. 

Driveshaft is in!

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No issues in regular driving without the coding thankfully. 

Still trying to figure the computers out!

Ok so I'm not done with the coding, but I've made progress. 

So far the hardest part of this has been sifting through the various forums looking for the right combination of programs to let me edit modules. I finally got access to the developer options in DAS for the ME97 and it allowed me to change my transmission type from NAG 2 to NSG here:

And that resulted in the ME97 showing this transmission:

I can now start the car with all automatic transmission components unplugged. I still need to code out the central gateway module (or SAM) to get rid of the PRND in the cluster, but I think I need a better cable than the one I have now for that as it won't read the module version. After that it's just putting all of the trim back together in the interior and that's it. 

Parts Used 

Transmission: 716 manual transmission (dealers choice here, they came in a bunch of stuff but try to get one that was bolted to an m272)

Shifter, clutch/brake pedal (204-290-5301) + hydraulic lines (003-997-22-52, 204-290-00-13, 211-290-30-13), and driveshaft (204-410-1206) from 2008-2011 W204 C300. ETA: I used the W204 driveshaft from the GLK to do the manual swap in the E550. The GLK now has a driveshaft from a RWD W212 with carrier bearing relocation brackets.  

Clutch set: LUK 11055

Flywheel: LUK DMF078

The transmission mount is the same between auto + manual, the auto crossmember will fit but the manual crossmember will give you more room to tighten the driveshaft bolts. 

This is a bolt in swap for the RWD W/X204 platform, 0 non-factory provisioned modifications are necessary. 

Factree. 

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Coding is finally done, no fault codes present.

To code a W204/X204 from automatic to manual you will need a J2534 passthru device (openport clone works fine), and DAS with 204 protoyp patch and/or vediamo 4.2.2. 

You need to change the coding for three modules: the ME97, the central gateway, and front SAM

I used DAS to change the implicit coding of the ME97(me97.cbf) from automatic to manual (in the post above), and vediamo to change the implicit coding for the central gateway (cgw212.cbf) to change "423_427_automatikgetriebe" from available to not available to get rid of the prnd in the cluster. Used vediamo to program the front SAM (samf_172.cbf)  RG_EN from nein to ja in VCD_Parameter_Rueckwaertsgangerkennung for reverse lights.

That's all there is to the coding, ignore any posts you find saying coding for the W204 HAS to be done with a c3/c4 and XDOS online.

It's beautiful how truly simple that is. Nice job!

In reply to iansane :

Thank you! Yeah it really was surprisingly simple, even though it did take me a while to find what I actually needed to do to code the modules. When you have the right tools Mercedes actually makes it easy to tinker. 

In reply to iammclovin804 :

How much did you pay for your 716 and where did you get it?  The one that came behind the m272 are the 716.667 I believe. They also bolt to the m113 v8 engines. 

I'm looking for one for my w108.

In reply to yupididit :

I paid $450 for the transmission itself from a salvage yard near Fredericksburg, VA. They had an entire donor car so I purchased everything I need for the swap from them for $975.

Car-part.com is your friend if you're looking for a transmission. 

Thanks. I'm an hour north of Fredericksburg in Alexandria VA. I always forget about car-part.com

Swapped in a color instrument cluster from a 2014 GLK and the dang shift indicator is back. None of my auto > manual coding changed, so I think this is just part of the software in this cluster. I'll have to look in to how I might be able to change it. 

To swap a used cluster you'll need to "virginize" it by having the mileage set to 0. I paid for this from a website called MBTools, there are ways to unlock the cluster with seedkey calculators but I never could get one to work.

Once it's virginized you can go in Vediamo and run the routine "RT_Kombi_einlernen_Start" to teach in the cluster to the car, and then you can transfer over your variant coding. 

Edit:

Weird, I just noticed the mileage is off on the new cluster. It's pulled directly from the EIS in the teach in procedure so I'm not sure how that happened. 

Hey just stumbled on this and yes absolutely amazing!! Was there a speedo hook up too? Perhaps the ratio is a bit different from the automatic? 

Anyways thanks for sharing definitely helped my google search ambition 

sammyco said:

Hey just stumbled on this and yes absolutely amazing!! Was there a speedo hook up too? Perhaps the ratio is a bit different from the automatic? 

 

Anyways thanks for sharing definitely helped my google search ambition 

Sorry for such a late reply to this.

The speedo reading comes from the wheel speed sensors and the ABS module so nothing needed to be done there. 

In reply to yupididit :

Yes, I forget about them too, but it can be very useful!

iammclovin804 - this is really cool how how you made this happen and dispelled the "it can't be done" mindset. But since new cars are so computerized now, not shocked that a different year cluster behaves differently, but I am confident you will figure it out.

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to yupididit :

Yes, I forget about them too, but it can be very useful!

iammclovin804 - this is really cool how how you made this happen and dispelled the "it can't be done" mindset. But since new cars are so computerized now, not shocked that a different year cluster behaves differently, but I am confident you will figure it out.

I did get the new cluster all programmed in correctly thankfully. Basically had to run a hard reset command on it and that was it. 

Would you say the swap is worth the effort? I'd imagine your MPG went down somewhat, but by how much? 

You're a scholar and a gentleman for tagging the part numbers and tools needed to code this. Nice work since it looks like clean swap!

RKTFiST said:

Would you say the swap is worth the effort? I'd imagine your MPG went down somewhat, but by how much? 

You're a scholar and a gentleman for tagging the part numbers and tools needed to code this. Nice work since it looks like clean swap!

I think for most people it wouldn't be worth it. It wasn't a difficult swap, but there's no real benefit unless you just prefer driving manuals like I do. 

MPG is about the same. I'm averaging 21 MPG in mixed driving. I think the manual works better with the rear gearing for MPG so losing the 7th gear hasn't mattered much.