yupididit wrote: I hope it has euro bumpers! They're easy to work on even the suspension. If you can work on the cars you have now then you can work on a 6.9 Parts and prices though... W116.org is your friend.
Euro lights, but not bumpers. I would love to put euro bumpers on it eventually though.
I couldn't sell the 116 euro bumpers I used to own. Had to give them away for free.
Well I bragged on the ol girl too soon. I think I blew an abc hose. Heard a loud bang and the CL got floaty and I got an abc warning light, but the car did not pancake (which is how I bought it when the abc bamper hose went). I got it to a parking lot and looked it over....fluid is leaking from the left side in front of the rear tire. I plan to go get it with my trailer, then diagnose it after work tomorrow. If it's a hose, and fairly easily accessible, I'll go ahead and pull it and have a new one made Thursday or Friday.
So the CL is on the trailer and I'll track down the leak tonight. Also, I need to unload it because I'm going to look at the 6.9 Friday and will need the trailer. 
I want to be like you when I grow up.
Okay I found the popped hose. It runs from the left rear valve block, which is in front of the driver's rear tire, to the rear accumulator, which is under the passenger rear muffler. It's a combination of hard and flex line, but all one piece and I think at the very least I'll have to drop the rear exhaust since this thing has FOUR mufflers in my way. I wonder if now is the time to do the yellowspeed coilover conversion? I'll lose some ride quality, but take care what is really the most failure prone part of the car, plus at 1k all in it seems like a good deal. I'll think about it while I figure out the best way to remove this line.
Get coilovers and remove a set of mufflers?
In reply to yupididit:
Muffler delete is definitely on the list. I actually took it to a local shop last week to try and get it done, but they didn't want to do it. Just need to find a performance shop that will. I plan to get rid of al four though because the two catalytic converters will muffle it 'enough'.
Another option is this: http://m.ebay.com/itm/00-06-w215-MERCEDES-CL500-CL55-CL600-LORINSER-EXHAUST-PIPE-MUFFLERS-TIPS-3496-/232227893312?fits=Model%3ACL600&hash=item3611dc7040%3Ag%3A2W0AAOSw-0xYlKm3&_trkparms=pageci%253A76358e98-5159-11e7-bf78-74dbd1804cae%257Cparentrq%253Aa8f1bb9015c0abda6d307fd1ffff6de1%257Ciid%253A5
Then I could just drop mine and install that one, but freight will be $200 on that, so all in I'd be $900 plus and I think I can get the muffler delete done somewhere local for under $300.
I Really like this thread. Takes an interesting person to have problems like "my firetruck was not where I left it".
I know one day I'll probably buy a car from cotton lol
In reply to yupididit:
There should be plenty to choose from!
I've been reading coilover conversion threads and I'm close to pulling the trigger on the yellowspeed kit. I may order it up tomorrow or Friday just want to check on a few more things.
This Cayman may be the end of my car hoarding days. For about a year!
What company makes the parts for those coilovers?
In reply to yupididit:
There aren't many options it seems. Yellowspeed and strutmasters, but yellowspeed has been the best reviewed by far. I'm not sure who makes the parts though. This is the kit I'm looking at:
Pretty sure those are basically the same design as my D2 coilovers on my conquest. The springs look kinda different and probably has different/upgraded dampening. But just looking at them they just look like painted D2's AKA BC and K-sport. Not the best but given the price and no other real options you'll just have to find out!
With the coilovers are there a lot of parts you can remove from the ABC system, or are they tied into other systems that would give you a bunch of errors?
In reply to camaroz1985:
You can remove the hoses, valve blocks, accumulators, etc and all that's left is the pump which feeds both the abc and ps, but uses seperate reservoirs. It's a pain to remove it all though, so I will more than likely just replace the struts and feed the abc output hose back into the return, which will keep it from running dry on the abc side.
You will be left with a red abc light and there are a couple of options for that. You can buy a delete module through stutmasters for a ~$200 which gets rid of all the error messages or you can pull a couple of fuses which leaves you with a warning you can dismiss, but you have to do it each time you start the car.
Well looks like the 6.9 deal is on hold for now. Seller is getting cold feet. It could still happen, so I'll just have to be ready if/when they change their mind.
Not getting the 6.9 right away is upsetting, but I just now placed the order for the coilover kit for the CL, so there's that. It said 3-12 days, so I'll dive in as soon as I get them.
Congrats!
Got a shipping notification....delivery is estimated for the 22nd, so I might be able to do the install next week.
Well it's been awhile, and projects keep stacking up due to my recent work travel schedule, but the coilover conversion is complete!
Pretty straight forward really. The only real gotcha on the v12 cars is the tandem pump that handles both abc and PS (through separate reservoirs). On the v8 cars you can just swap to a ps only pump from a non abc car, but since all the v12s were abc you're stuck with the tandem pump. Running them dry eventually leads to pump failure, and it's a bitch to change, so I just cut the main pressure line and fed it back into the return line...that way fluid keeps running through both sides of the pump and it stays happy.
Otherwise, some other things to note:
Cost was not bad at $950 shipped from the U.K. Had I done this conversion immediately when I got the car I could have saved 500-600 on my initial ABC related repairs.
Install was pretty simple. The fronts went very quick....rears took a little longer, but would have been quicker if I'd used my lift instead of a jack. My other v12 Benz was on the lift and I didn't feel like it was a big enough deal to move it when I started the coilover job....lesson learned. Rerouting the pump hydraulics and setting the height probably took longer than the strut install.
The ride is good, not ABC hydraulic good, but still not bad at all. The difference is more noticeable on the rough stuff than anywhere else really. Plus, I now have squat, dive, and some body roll that ABC took care of in the past, but that's to be expected. I'm still fine tuning the settings, and currently am about halfway between soft and hard, so can tune some of that out. However, this is my commuter and will never be a track car, so I don't want to make it too stiff.
After completion I had the big red abc malfunction light that you can't get past initially. I pulled the f46 fuse, which got rid of that and now I just have a white warning light than comes up on startup, but I can just cancel out of. Strutmasters makes a module to get rid of it completely, but it's $400, so I'll just keep hitting cancel for now.
I'm still tweaking the ride height. After a few tries I'm close now, but need to come up on the front slightly. Once I get it right, and find another hosting site other than stupid photobucket, I'll post some pics.
Anyway, I took the CL on my commute today, which is 104 miles round trip, and am very happy with the results. I loved the feel of ABC, but the converted ride is definitely good enough, I have the piece of mind of not having to worry about a sudden hydraulic failure now, or the time consuming repairs associated, and it should save significant money in the long run.
Now if I can just find the time to tackle the needed turbo rebuild on the s600......
Nice! How long it take you?
In reply to yupididit:
Man, it wasn't too bad. I did the coilovers on a jack, then came to my senses and pulled the s600 off the lift, so I could finish up doing the pump work and ride height adjustment on the lift. I guess I had a full day in it and still need to tweak the front ride height, which should take about 30 minutes. Of course, if I had to do it again I'll bet I could do it in 3-4 hours now that I've done it once......that's how it usually goes!
Not bad. I meant to email you about a potential project that I ended up passing on.
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