My 2004 Mercedes Benz E320 aka The Benz

[87gtVIC]

Shined her up this morning.

Meguiars Ultimate Wash and Wax and then some Ultimate quick wax. Windows were cleaned throughly with McKee's 37 Krystal Vision Glass cleaner. All door jambs were douched with Flash Grape Gloss Car Spray wax. Wheels were coated the same way, tires were dressed with Meguiars Endurance tire shine gel. Its perty.







I have all new motor mounts and a tranny mount ready to go in. Want to start the project on Saturday just in case I need some extra time as the exhaust needs to be removed after the manifolds. This is my daily driver after all.

[87gtVIC]

Swapped out the two motor mounts and the one transmission mount today on the Benz.

In order to even get access to the two engine mounts one must remove the exhaust after the manifolds.

Lucky for me the four manifold bolts came out without fuss.

The four bolts at the transmission hangers gave me a fight (these are just bolts supporting the exhaust) and only two out of the four at the rear of the exhaust (just before what would be the “overaxles”) broke.

The two engine mounts then came out with ease after raising the engine some, and raising it even more to place the new ones in.

The drivers’ side engine mount was leaking and collapsing slowly. The passengers’ side one showed no signs of leakage but was significantly squished.

After those two were replaced I attacked the tranny mount. Easy peasy. Four bolts and she is out. Naturally I had to jack up the tranny some in order to get the bolts to line up as that mount was tired and saggy as well.

Everything went back in with ease. All in all not too bad. Took about 3hrs and that includes wire wheeling the old bolts and sourcing new bolts to replace the ones that broke!

The one with brown goo is the drivers side.



Yay for German parts.

[87gtVIC]

She reached 116000 miles the other afternoon! Headlights were getting dull again so I addressed that this morning.

This is with the drivers side done. Masked off all of the edges, used meguiars heavy duty headlight kit on the lenses. I put the 1000 grit sanding discs onto my milwaukee speed polisher and used that to sand down the yellowing, then followed the 1000 up with the 3000.

After I installed the supplied buffer pad onto my drill and applied the plastx polish and finished up the job with the headlight sealant.



Passengers side before touching anything...not bad but was not as good as it has been in the past.




This is the drivers side done, upclose.



Finished product









Last weekend I washed, clayed and sealed the paint. Also applied rainx to the windows.

[87gtVIC]

Gave some lovin to the Benz this morning:







Weird bug loves it too!

[gadget73]

damn stinkbugs

[87gtVIC]

Update..

Here she is after her first snow storm of 2018. Did VERY well. This was in the beginning of January:




And today:




With video slide show!

[87gtVIC]

The finish on the front license plate holder of the Benz has been slowly degrading over the past year or so. Clear was coming off of it exposing the raw basecoat to the elements. Was looking ugly so I had to fix it.

How the front license plate holder looked:



The unexposed portion behind the actual license plate was unaffected:



I sanded everything down and primed the entire piece. Let it dry out in the sun for a couple of days then applied dry guide coat and blocked the finish out smooth.

Here she rests before getting painted and cleared:



Here it is installed back onto the car.









Very very very happy with the results. Express paints.com base coat in a spray can and spraymax 2k clear in a spray can made this job possible.

[gadget73]

is that the place that will custom mix real auto paint into a rattle can? Looks good.

[87gtVIC]

Yep. I use https://www.expresspaint.com/

Another reputable one is http://www.automotivetouchup.com/index.htm though I have never personally tried them. I do like the look of their spray nozzles over the ones from express paints.

[87gtVIC]

Perfect overcast gloomy day for engine cleaning.

First I picked out all the debris then blew everything out with a garden blower. Used some general all purpose cleaner for the underside of the hood and then Gunk foamy engine degreaser and gunk original for the engine compartment. Scrubbed everything down really well and rinsed. Finished off the plastics with 303 aerospace protectant and spray waxed the painted metals.

[87gtVIC]

Drivers side front and rear door lock knobs have been sun fatigued/broken off and reglued a number of times under my ownership. Researching the issues and it became apparent everyone suffers from this problem. I picked up four new ones and replaced the two ugly drivers side ones. They just unscrew nice and easy.

[87gtVIC]

Paint chip day.

Marked all the areas that needed attention (basically the BIG stuff) and sanded the areas down with some 2k grit paper.

Take a hole punch, super glue and a #2 pencil with HARD untouched eraser and super glue the hole punched sandpaper to the pencils eraser. Good way of really pinpointing the sanding.







Will level out the touched up areas tomorrow and polish the spots up.

[87gtVIC]

Sanded down all the touched up areas with the pencil eraser sand paper trick and then just compounded the spots out by had with a microfiber applicator pad. Spots are protected now. Also cleaned the wheel wells on the car. About a month ago I ran through some water in a construction zone. Water in a constructions zone is NEVER just water. Left ugly white stains in the wheel wells. Luckily some minor agitation with a brush and some all purpose cleaner took car if it.

[87gtVIC]

Reached 120,000 today.

[GM_Guy]

Looking good.

Alex.