V12 twin turbo? Here I come!

In reply to yupididit:

Let me know if it's a good one! I'm still looking for a 6.9 off and on, but no real rush. I have my hands full right now anyway, but if the right car comes along I doubt I'll be able to resist.

Ill keep my eyes open for a 6.9 for you!

Okay so now I have a little over 500 miles on the coilover swap and really like it. The soft to hard setting are 1-33 and I'm currently sitting at 20 all the way around. Also, after a few tweaks here is the current ride height....more pictures with a clean car coming after the weekend.

That looks nice, but a different set of wheels would really set that thing off!

I have another set that would probably look better on it, but I need to have them refinished.

Next on the list is the exhaust!

Obvious wheel suggestion

You've been neglecting us, Jeff!

Haha well the CL has been a great commuter,  so nothing really to report.  The coilover conversion is working great too,  so that's a viable option to replace the hydraulics on these aging cars.  

I'll probably hit 200k by the end of the year and am trying to decide if I want to keep the CL and S or sell one of them.  I should sell one,  but then he struggle is which one because I like them both for different reasons.  The coupe is a much better looking car,  but the S has 60k less miles, already has an exhaust (sounds awesome),  and is more usable being a 4 door.

Right now the only outstanding issue I have on the CL is a popping in the pass side front.  I really need to address it,  but just haven't had the time with all the other projects.  

On the S I still need to rebuild the driver's side turbo.  I've had other projects hogging the lift,  so just haven't been able to address it either.  Maybe that will be my winter project.

I might still be interested in the S depending on how things go the next few months. 

Based partly on this thread and partly on the two 200k+ MB's sitting in my driveway, I've put one of these v12tt beasts on my wish list.  A month or so ago there was a ~'07 S65 on local CL.  Had 120k I think.   600+ hp / 700+ tq stock.  List price was $180k, and the single owner had another $50k in receipts!  Asking price was $17k.  What could go wrong...

Rebuild those turbos yet? 

yupididit said:

Rebuild those turbos yet? 

Unfortunately not.  I'm bogged down with other projects.  I WANT to get to it because I miss driving it,  but with the CL600 running so well it's not really a priority.  I guess if the CL had a catastrophic failure tomorrow I'd get it in the shop and get on it.  As it is right now I'm not sure when I'll get to it.....maybe spring!

Let me lowball you for it as-is LMAO. Or trade you my XJR, whenever I bring it back from Cali LoL! 

Pick up anything new or interesting?

I bought a nice 85 CJ-7 Jeep,  but it won’t be here until January since it’s coming from a buddy in NC.  I also picked up a rough 67 Jeepster Commando that I have no idea what I’ll do with,  but I traded something even more useless for it even,  so I look at it as a win!  I didn’t just all of the sudden get hot for Jeeps...really a coincidence these deals happened basically in the same week.  

The CJ-7 will replace my 72 FJ-40 since I never really took to the FJ and the Jeep is a little bit nicer.  I’ll probably sell the FJ after Christmas.

That’s pretty much it recently.  A low ball offer on the Benz might work depending on the day of the week and my mood.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed and decide to sell and other times you can’t pry them away from me lol.  My job is also going to get busier next year,  so I’m trying to prepare for that and move out some projects before my travel ramps up around March.  

Okay I'll give you a call in March 

yupididit said:

Okay I'll give you a call in March 

Lol!  I see you got a Miata project.  I actually had a Miata project for a few months recently,  but it went to a buddy in one of my selling moods.  Did you ever wrap up the sc work and mods on the Jag?

In reply to Cotton :

Yes, I did but it's storage in California. I didn't get to get the exhaust done though. The miata kinda just happened lol. 

Long time no update!

I had a problem with the CL I couldn't/didn't have time to figure out,  so parked it for a few months until I had time to dig around with Star diagnostics.  

Well actually I had a few issues I needed to address- 

-Cooling fan running on high ALL the time.  This was the big problem....the car sounded like a jet about to take off.

For this I expected STAR to just tell me what was broken,  because with these types of things it's usually very good about pointing out a sensor, module,  or something out of wack,  but it really gave me no fan related errors.  I did find where I could "command" fan speed on the fly in STAR,  which didn't work,  so I knew I wasn't communicating with the fan module.  A little internets research told me it's a relatively common failure (fan modue), and the default action it to run on high for safety.  The module and fan assembly are one unit,  so I swapped the fan from the s600 to the cl and everything worked normally.  The fan unit is around $350,  so I'll get one ordered to replace what I stole from the S600.

-A "pre-safe unavailable" message in the instrument cluster:

This was annoying just because I had to acknowledge it and reset it each time I started the car.  Pre-safe is a safety feature that sets the seat, sunroof, etc to the safest position in the event of an accident....or something like that.  One of my rear headrests is non functional,  so this could have triggered the message.  Until I can fix that I just went into the variant coding in STAR and turned pre-safe off.  I ride a motorcycle and drive a bunch of old cars,  so even without pre-safe I think I'll be just fine in the benz.

-front end "popping noises":

Looks to be some aging balljoints and a arm bushings.  I ordered a complete front A Arm kit with new balljoints and bushings for $275.95 and will install when it comes in.

- brake wear warning message:

The wear sensors are triggered.  I ordered rotors from rock auto and duralast "gold" pads from autozone.  The rotors were closeout and with the pads total cost was ~$100.  I'll tackle this job with the a arms.

Current mileage right at 197,500.

Stealing parts from my S600 tsk tsk

In reply to yupididit :

I know!  It will be made whole again soon though.

Where did you get your STAR machine?  It is finally time for me to get one.

I had some front end popping noises in my CLS63.  I replaced ball joints and front forward LCAs and a wheel bearing and checked everything many times.  

It ended up being sway bar bushings that were binding up a bit and needed to be lubed.   At least I have new ball joints now.  

Aaron_King said:

Where did you get your STAR machine?  It is finally time for me to get one.

MBstartool.com.  It came with the laptop,  configured, etc.  I was able to unbox and use it immediately.  Total cost was 575 shipped and I got a slightly better deal by emailing them as opposed to picking a bundle right off the site.  Great customer service as well.  I will also say I would have been at the mercy of shops multiple times without STAR,  but since I have it I have not had to rely on a shop for anything at all from a repair/configuration perspective.

Sonic said:

I had some front end popping noises in my CLS63.  I replaced ball joints and front forward LCAs and a wheel bearing and checked everything many times.  

 

It ended up being sway bar bushings that were binding up a bit and needed to be lubed.   At least I have new ball joints now.  

lol,  that's exactly the type of thing that would happen to me.  The ABC cars don't have sway bars,  but I wouldn't be surprised if I go through all this work and it turns out to be something else.

BTW I really like the CLS and have been tempted many times to move from V12 to v8,  whether a CLS or E series, especially after comparing engine bays and seeing the additional room to work.  How do you like the CLS63?

I just wanted to pop in and say that I love this thread and harbor dark fantasies of picking up a v12tt Merc for a daily cruiser. Keep it up!