Ownership Verified: w210 - Silver arrow

[SIMid]

Looks great! Definately screaming for some larger rims.

 

[Boobo-oobo]

Looks great! Definately screaming for some larger rims.

Looks can be deceiving

Rims, yeah, 18's would hit the spot, but thats gonna be hard on my budget . . . I'm always looking for a good deal to come up, so fingers crossed

Oh, and just saw you DMC thread, man that car is sweeeeeet!

 

[Ianspeed]

I think its looks great!

Carry on - I'll be looking at used prices for w210's now. Such a pretty thing.

 

[SIMid]

Looks can be deceiving

Rims, yeah, 18's would hit the spot, but thats gonna be hard on my budget . . . I'm always looking for a good deal to come up, so fingers crossed

Oh, and just saw you DMC thread, man that car is sweeeeeet!

Keep your eyes open, you jsut never know!! Could come across a set of 19"s!!

Thanks for the compliment too!

 

[Boobo-oobo]

I think its looks great!

Carry on - I'll be looking at used prices for w210's now. Such a pretty thing.

Thanks. Yeah, w210 is cool

Keep your eyes open, you jsut never know!! Could come across a set of 19"s!!

Thanks for the compliment too!

Uuuu, 19"'s, that would be too uncomfortable

Finished my paddle shifter mod today. Had to disassemble half of the car

And the shifter module.

To get to this board and solder some wires for the paddles.

All assembled

And it works . . .

 

[Perc]

How does the manual shifting work, btw? I mean, it looks like +/- is done with the shifter being in D. Does it go back to fully automatic a while after manually selecting a gear, or how does it work? Does it upshift if you try to redline it in "manual" mode etc?

 

[Boobo-oobo]

How does the manual shifting work, btw? I mean, it looks like +/- is done with the shifter being in D. Does it go back to fully automatic a while after manually selecting a gear, or how does it work? Does it upshift if you try to redline it in "manual" mode etc?

Yes, the shifter has to be in D to work, you can click the paddles in P,R and N, but nothing happens. The shifting works kinda like a high gear limiter in a way. You have gears 1,2,3,4 and 5(which is D). When in D, depending on the speed and throttle and other parameters, the gearbox will choose the gear from 1-5. If you put it in 4, its still an automatic, but it goes from 1-4th gear. Same for 3,2,1. When in D, you can also click + to change the gear up when the gearbox "thinks" that you dont need a higher gear. Its kinda hard to explain, cause you're also using your gas pedal to determine when to shift. If you floor it, it will automatically go to the lowest gear possible at that moment. If you push the pedal just a bit to accelerate, you will most likely be still in the same gear and accelerate a bit. If you push like mid way, it will shift one down to accelerate . . .

Ill make a video tomorrow, and try to give some practical examples . . .

 

[Perc]

I know how automatic transmissions work, I've owned several auto cars myself. I've just always wondered how the "manual mode" works on the MB boxes. It sounds like it works exactly like the 3 2 1" positions you find below D on a traditional auto transmission shifter. Not very manual, in other words.

The manual mode on my Geartronic works a bit differently. It always stays in the gear I select, even if I redline it. If I stick it in "3" it'll use third gear only, not 1-2-3. It won't select gears that are way too high (like fourth at 20km/h) and it'll refuse to downshift to gears that will overrev the engine... and it also goes to first by itself when you brake to a stop.

I always thought shifting a slushbox manually was useless, but it's actually handy on freeway on-ramps and when overtaking. It makes things a bit easier when you can grab third gear and have instant power on tap when gap in traffic finally appears.

 

[Cobol74]

I was up at the tip today and a lady parked next to me in a beautiful K-reg Merc 420 SEC top spec with leather everything - we had a nice chat.

 

[Boobo-oobo]

I know how automatic transmissions work, I've owned several auto cars myself. I've just always wondered how the "manual mode" works on the MB boxes. It sounds like it works exactly like the 3 2 1" positions you find below D on a traditional auto transmission shifter. Not very manual, in other words.

The manual mode on my Geartronic works a bit differently. It always stays in the gear I select, even if I redline it. If I stick it in "3" it'll use third gear only, not 1-2-3. It won't select gears that are way too high (like fourth at 20km/h) and it'll refuse to downshift to gears that will overrev the engine... and it also goes to first by itself when you brake to a stop.

I always thought shifting a slushbox manually was useless, but it's actually handy on freeway on-ramps and when overtaking. It makes things a bit easier when you can grab third gear and have instant power on tap when gap in traffic finally appears.

Yeah, its not a full manual, it cant be, its not made for that. And it is exactly like the 4-3-2-1 positions bellow D on older boxes. P,R,N and D are selected physically, you physically move the lever on the shifter. 4-3-2-1 are computer controlled, its just sending digital signals to the shifter. Its just that on older shifters you do that by moving the shifter to 4-3-2-1, and on mine you do that with +/-. Explained here :

I found a guy that did his own shifter controller. He programmed it himself, and can control everything about the shifter. I guess he can then go full manual with it.

Mine too wont go in higher gear, but i haven't really tried the downshift to 1st or 2nd while doing like +60km/h. Im kinda scared that i dont fuck up anything. I like to think that it wont go in 1st, the electronics wont let me, but lets not try that

And this limiting high gear thingy has its advantages. The more practical uses would be like going downhill, and you want to stop the shifter from going to higher gear, you can put it in 3rd, and brake with your engine. Or when you're towing something, maybe you want to limit the gear . . . My modification is more show than go, its the same thing as the +/- on the shifter itself, ive just moved it to the steering wheel. For full manual you would need to make something like that guy who made his own controller. Or get a proper paddle shifter manual . . .

I guess that todays MB shifter dont work like mine, havent drove anything thats a proper manual paddle shifter, so i cant really tell.

 

[Boobo-oobo]

And this is what happens when you give your car to your younger brother who recently passed his driving test . . .

Could be a lot worse, but still. He cracked the bumper, broke the left underbody protection and bended the radiator carrier. Almost broke the radiator valve and the intercooler hose. I've bended the radiator carrier back to its place and secured the underbody plastics.

And here's an video update on the paddle shifter. My English aint that great, i do stutter a bit and that wub-wub sound that you can hear while driving, thats a rear wheel barring i gotta replace . . .
Its been a week since the install, no problems whatsoever with the paddles or the 2 channel remote. Everything works perfect.

Plus, i suck at video editing, i know.

 

[Boobo-oobo]

Sticker bomb. Yay or Ney? What do we think?

 

[Hbriz]

Not on a Merc

 

[syncview]

Nayy

 

[C3Vette]

Not on the grill, and not on a W210 in my opinion. Also it tends looks like a mess when you're looking it further away.. Get a slammed golf or something like that and stickerbomb the hell out of it.

 

[nd4spd13]

And installed :
Before :

After:

Also painted the needles to white. I love the look of the cluster now.

Hey, I love the work you're doing. I'm looking to do the same to my W202 AMG. But before I can work on the paddle shifter portion, I first have to convert the car to Tiptronic.
I just got a W210 updated cluster and I really like the way you've made it look. Could you elaborate on what you did you paint the needles? Is it regular paint or special see-through stuff to let the light through or what?
Thanks!

Also: your photography is fantastic

 

[Boobo-oobo]

Hey, I love the work you're doing. I'm looking to do the same to my W202 AMG. But before I can work on the paddle shifter portion, I first have to convert the car to Tiptronic.
I just got a W210 updated cluster and I really like the way you've made it look. Could you elaborate on what you did you paint the needles? Is it regular paint or special see-through stuff to let the light through or what?
Thanks!

Also: your photography is fantastic

Hey, thanks man for the kind words

To paint the needles, use paint that model makers use for painting model cars/planes and such. Or you can order one of these LINK like i did. And the needles are only painted on the bottom side. The top and sides are not painted. So you need to take off the orange paint, do this very thoroughly, you want to get all of the paint off. Then you paint the bottom side only, making sure you have an even coat of paint, no lumps of paint anywhere or that will be visible later. And thats it. Have a lot of patience, it took me 3 tries to get it right.

And for the paddle shifters, I you need any help on that, let me know. I can make you the electronics if you want, i just did one for a guy in Germany.

 

[Boobo-oobo]

Quick update . . .

Couple of weeks ago I went to clean the MAF sensor cause it was bugging me from time to time. And do I have to say that I broke it completely instead of fixing it? So couple of weeks the car was only going to safe mode, meaning no more than ~2500 revs, max. speed of ~130km/h, slow acceleration etc etc . . . Today it finally arrived and I installed it quickly.

This is the old one :

And as I sorted that problem, another on arrived . Brake light switch decided to malfunction again. When I would press the brake pedal, the car would turn off ABS, BAS and ESP. Had that problem about a year ago so I knew what to do . . . Took out the brake light switch and gave the contact a good clean . . .

You can see where's the problem :

And after some fine sanding and alcohol cleaning:

Should hold for some time . . . Until it gets dirty again . . .

And a quick pic of the car . . .

 

[Boobo-oobo]

Curious as I am, i went and disassembled the MAF sensor. Wanted to know what was inside . . .

Cant find anything on that chip tho. Elmos Semiconductor is a German based company and i guess this chip in internally developed, so Google isn't very helpful. My guess is that it might be a transformer of sorts, amplifying the small signal from the sensor to the computer . . .

Also replaced some bulbs . . .

It bugged me how they were blinking more white than orange

And got some rubber floor mats, made in Germany, very good quality, real rubber and quite heavy . . .

 

[Boobo-oobo]

My new project, adaptive brake lights . . . I guess you all know what i mean, but i want to add the function to the 3rd brake light to start blinking under hard braking. My idea is to add another switch to the brake that would be activated under hard braking, and then only the 3rd brake would blink. Why only the 3rd brake light? Well simply because the 3rd brake light isn't in the "light bulb defected" system. If I do it on all of the brake lights, i would have to consider then the current that goes through the circuit and such . . . And the 3rd brake light is LED, other lights are normal bulbs.

The circuit is build around the 555 timer IC, if anyone is interested you have good tutorials here : http://www.doctronics.co.uk/555.htm#pb_04

My schematic is this :

And the test :

The blinking speed can be fine tuned, just need to make the board and solder everything together and install it in the car . . . Soon . . .