My Kind of Facelift

Since day one, my single biggest woe with the car's external condition was the mask. It was horribly broken in a lot of ways; some of the chrome was chipping and falling off, the upper lip was hanging, no longer attached to its plastic support clips, and some of the plastic grilles had broken. All the plastic parts were starting to fade pretty bad.

It's the primary eye catcher in the car's nose, so I wanted it perfect.

So yesterday I received, from Stuttgart with love,

A complete Mercedes-original mask. It is the single most expensive part I've bought for this car.

The old front. Not too shabby from a couple meters away, right?

 

Almost all of plastic clips holding the upper lip in place are broken; the lip is hanging free.

Chrome in the passenger side "wing" is falling off.

How did this happen?! Anyway, it was like this when I bought the car.

Only the outermost plastic clips holding the upper lip remain.

First, the mask came out. It is held in place by 5 evenly placed bolts and 1 screw. Remove those and the mask lifts off towards the front of the car.

The bolts had rusted a bit, leaving quite a sizeable amount of rust on the hood-side clips.

A previous owner had "repaired" the broken clips by gluing the hanging lip in place with silicone.

Removed the adhesive to the best of my ability.

Ready to receive a new nose.

Old, dirty mask & New, pristine mask!

The plastic clips have sheered off. Also, two kinds of adhesive here, so I would guess two previous "repairs".

Missing clip

You wouldn't believe the new mask. It is absolutely beautiful. The chrome is just unbelievable. It's pristine, and so gleaming nice. However, the mask is suprisingly light, and seems quite fragile. Had to handle it with real care.

Wax on

Soaking the fasteners in WD40 to remove dirt and rust.

"Clean" old fasteners, bolts

New mask installed!

You have to be surprisingly violent to get one of these masks in place. It actually has a rubber seal around it. I didn't quite get it 100 % centered, so it's a bit tighter on the driver side than the opposite. However, because it's still 0 celsius outside, I dare not uninstall and reinstall over and over again until it's perfect, in fear of breaking the plastic.

Front refresh is now finished!