R171 SLK200 6 Speed Man 1.8 L M271

[B'stard Child]

Quick precis of how I got here

Bought an SLK230 (thread here 9 years living with a 2001 SLK230 6 speed manual) for Mrs BC on a pretty much a whim - turned out to be a great little car and she loved it but rust and electrical issues eventually killed it (unfortunately I still have it taking up space but I'll resolve that shortly) - suddenly needed a new daily and quickly

Decided to be sensible and stop piddling money on cars and fuel and bought a modern white goods Skoda (thread here Skoda Rapid - surprisingly good unfortunately Mrs BC hated it - there are no words to describe just how much she hated it either.......

So I needed to get back into a car which Mrs BC didn't hate so Skoda got chopped in for a 125i (Thread here Living with a BMW 125i N52

However downsides to all that chopping and changing was Mrs BC missed the roof down opportunities and wanted another SLK but I didn't want to spend much - not very much at all.........

Then a guy at work mentions he's selling his (it's not practical now he and his wife have a baby)





Its 2006 127,000 miles has awful aftermarket alloys with the wrong offset, on budget tyres I have never heard of and 5.5 AMG badges everywhere, the calipers have been painted pink, the drivers seat has a rip in it and it's got it's fair share of dinks around the panels, it's also got a whole 163bhp so is pretty glacial in terms of go (compared to my old SLK which had 204)

I always try to buy on condition rather than miles - for me it's much easier/cheaper to rectify the mechanicals on a high mileage car than it is to bring the cosmetics up to a good std on something that has seen a bit too much action - I try to get cars with a reasonable balance of performance v cost

In a nutshell it was exactly the sort of car I never buy - tired paintwork and a fair few cosmetic issues...........................









But it was cheap...............










So I bought it

To be continued - hopefully there is some interest

Edited to fix some errors

Edited by B'stard Child on Tuesday 19th January 10:24

[ChrisCh86]

That should be quite nice once you've removed the dreadful wheels and fake AMG badges and given it a bit of TLC.

No shots of the inside?

[B'stard Child]

ChrisCh86 said:

That should be quite nice once you've removed the dreadful wheels and fake AMG badges and given it a bit of TLC.

It needs a fair bit of TLC

Badges came off the same day - the wheels got removed and thrown on Ebay sold for £122 so the car got a little cheaper

ChrisCh86 said:

No shots of the inside?

Only one of the dog knob red seats



Mrs BC has a preference for black cars with black interiors so the interior might not have been well received

[helix402]

The wheels and badges are truly hideous. It can only get better!

[B'stard Child]

helix402 said:

The wheels and badges are truly hideous. It can only get better!

Possibly.........

So the old SLK might not have been to everyone's taste



But it did have nicer wheels.

However back in the mists of time I'd bought them second hand from a breaker

They were corroded but no kerbing so I had them shot blasted and powder coated and got my tyre guy to fit new tyres

One of them however turned out to have a buckle which was sub optimal - the breaker was great and found another one for me

The wheel refurb place tried to powder coat it to match and had several goes at it but couldn't get a match

So as the tyres were now worn out on the old SLK I had all four wheels (three good ones and the one that didn't match) refurbed again and a set of Uniroyal Rainsports thrown on them



Hideous badges removed and much better OE rims (IMO) - Much better

[devnull]

You're a brave man leaving a Lotus Carlton on the drive like that!

[B'stard Child]

With some advice from PH'r Fermit and Sexy Sarah on what to do with the split seat I bought a second hand seat from a breaker in dog knob red

Well packaged



Unpacked



However it wasn't as perfect as the advert said

Seat belt pre-tensioner had been fired so it's been in a bit of a shunt - things got a bit worse when I tried to fit it - all the runners were bent up



Much fun was had swapping over the back rest - OK it actually wasn't that much fun

With the seats removed it was an opportunity to clean out the interior





Following a tip in a thread by bolidemichael I decided I'd try to clean up seat belts in the hope that it sped up the retraction (horribly slow)

Result - wedding car

[B'stard Child]

devnull said:

You're a brave man leaving a Lotus Carlton on the drive like that!

It's just a car

It's already been the subject of one weldathon

It's a Vauxhall so it fizzes for fun even in a dry garage and I'm sure it'll need another weldathon soon or later

Only petrol heads know what it is - all the neighbours think it's just an ex minicab with fancy alloys...............

[Kawasicki]

One of the German magazines ran that engine for maybe 400k km. I think they dyno‘d it at 300k km, and power was UP by a few bhp.

[B'stard Child]

Kawasicki said:

One of the German magazines ran that engine for maybe 400k km. I think they dyno‘d it at 300k km, and power was UP by a few bhp.

I'm hoping this resolves the glacial performance



15% overdrive pulley (might need a bit of a remap to go with it)

[B'stard Child]

Headlights were cloudy - pictures make them look better than they were

A bit of ghetto masking





1500 wet and dry and a bit of mopping





Not perfect but much better

Plenty left to do do yet

Jobs completed

Replace the driver seat backrest

Deep clean interior

Refurb Wheels

New Tyres all round

wet sand and polish the headlights


Remaining jobs in the planned order

Full service

Replace the faded C panels

Black Front badge

Clean and polish the outside

Full Suspension Alignment

Black the brake calipers and de-rust the discs

Gas Struts for Bonnet (Tired originals)

Gas struts for boot lid (Tired originals)

Replace the wheel centres - the old badges are tired

Fit the new front wheel bearing caps at the same time (they were removed to fit the silly wheels)

Gummi Pledge the seals

Find out where the water is getting in the boot

Black the rear badges

Silvered front indicator bulbs to get rid of the fried egg look

Smaller pulley on the charger - currently 72mm (measured it) have 62mm pulley ready

Remove charger silencers

Fix the AC

Edited by B'stard Child on Monday 18th January 20:33

[B'stard Child]

Mrs BC comment at this stage was cheap car is probably not so cheap

[B'stard Child]

At this stage I made a mistake

I didn't take a picture of the utterly minging engine bay before

Have an after



You'll just have to take my word for it this was a 300% improvement

[Hashtaggggg]

Your car threads do put a smile on my face, keep them up!

[Mr lestat]

I have an SLK55 with the same colour seats. Never considered the colour till your description of dogs cock pink. Can’t look at it the same now

[B'stard Child]

Mr lestat said:

I have an SLK55 with the same colour seats. Never considered the colour till your description of dogs cock pink. Can’t look at it the same now

Apologies for that - I actually quite like them as a colour - I’m sure they have a proper name (terracotta or some other rubbish) for the colour but I haven’t got a clue what it is.....

[B'stard Child]

Actually I'm amazed Mercedes call it RED 877A

Anyway moving forwards - service time - plugs were done at the last service by the previous owner (pulled one and looked recent)

Oil Change



Blimey this thing had a lot of oil in it!!!

Looks nice and clean in the rocker cover



Oil filter and air filter were done as the old oil was extracted - new oil added nearly 6 Litres.

Pollen filter removed (I don't thing this has been changed for a while)



I like to use genuine parts but I was shocked at the cost of the pollen filter £80 after discount

Then while the pollen filter was out I stuck a bomb in the car and with it running set the heating to re-circulation for 15 mins it was time to give it a wash



Then clay bar - only did a little bit of the bonnet and it really picked off some contamination



Then "Lime Prime" pre wax cleanser followed by a coat of "Dodo Juice"



Starting to look a little better

Finished of with some new wiper blades

Then it was time to fit the new C pillar trims - these always look scabby - the sun bleaches them - most people wrap them but at £30 each side I thought it was easier to replace them



Old ones





Fitting process - needed some wood



But once it was all done it looked great



Mrs BC's Verdict - looks much better and smelled nice enough to get in it but on seeing the bill for parts - cheap car not so cheap....... She's probably right

Edited by B'stard Child on Tuesday 19th January 10:28

[B'stard Child]

Next job fix the pink brake calipers (PO had painted them red and they'd faded to pink) and they looked awful

The front bearing caps had been removed to fit those nasty wheels but they are only a couple of quid each

Some gloss back badges for the wheel centres and cosmetically just a few jobs left

[B'stard Child]

Hashtaggggg said:

Your car threads do put a smile on my face, keep them up!

Thank you - I think

[B'stard Child]

The trim above the screen has a rubber like coating on it and it was peeling off

Nicely shown in this picture



Scraped all the coating off - masked everything up - etch primer and then body colour



took me ages in between fixing the clutch on a Hyundai Scoupe thing (not bloody mine I hasten to add) and dodging rain showers

Then Mrs BC had her first drive out in the car

Mrs BC - it's not a lively as the last one

BC - Yes dear that's why there is a new supercharger pulley on the kitchen table

Mrs BC - And you spent all afternoon dicking around painting a window trim

BC - And fixing your cousins clutch

Mrs BC - Yeah but besides that........................



Oh and the heater is really bloody poor so there is something wrong there as the last SLK was borderline "thermo nuclear"