[W126 Coupe] Body Moldings

[Mdefran at earthlink.net]

I noticed we have a person who is concerned about weight of these moldings.

As you may recall I bought a set of late model claddings including the rocker panels for like $35 when junk yards wanted $800 and MB wants $3400. They in fact are made of urethane which is a flexible material. In order to paint them, one needs to add a certain additive to dry the paint but allow it to flex as necessary.

I am in the final processes of converting the car to the later state. What I have done so far is to remove both bumpers in order to get an accurate color match. I have had the bumpers repaired as necessary and all cladding repaired as well. I have then had all this painted essentially the original color. The paint and repair work was about $950. The shop time on this work was somewhere around 20 hours. This may seem alot, but depending on damage etc, could be more or less. The shop that did this for me is not an artist at his craft, but also a vendor, hence the break on the shop rate. The removal and replacement of the rear bumper is a piece of cake. The front bumper is another story. It is actually easier to remove the shock absorbers from the car, install them on the bumper and then return the set to the car for install. I think shop time on the R&R of both bumpers would be somewhere in the 4 to 5 hour range.

We are now entering the final stages of the project and hopefully it will be completed today. I am replacing all 6 chrome strips and as many fasteners as necessary. The fasteners for the chrome pieces are the same for both late and early cars with the exception that on the early cars, the last place where the cladding attaches to the door is actually a nut and bolt thing as opposed to a push fit. Hence the dremel came out for that removal.

The late model claddings have different fasteners than the early model ones and this could be problematic as there are specific mounting points on the inside of the cladding for the late model ones. The early ones are in a track and can move forward or backward to line up with the holes in the doors. I don't have an answer on that yet. That will be a follow up conversation depending on interest.

I am having my MB guy do the install due to the number of fasteners involved as well as this hole lining up issue I described above. As to the cost of the chrome pieces, I was quoted around $300 for all six plus the fasteners. I counted them at one point and as I recall it is somewhere in the 100 piece neighborhood to attach the six moldings. The rocker panels screw into the body and should be straight forward. I am guessing that the labor to do this is around 1 to 2 hours by the time all the fasteners are in place and the claddings attached.

Now to the question that got me started on this long winded explanation, weight of the claddings. I shipped all 8 pieces in two card board boxes and the total weight was 23 pounds. Take probably 5 or 6 pounds off for the cardboard and you have all weighing about 17 pounds give or take.

Total cost of this little project sounds like about $1500, which is still a far cry from the $3400 MB wants for the claddings plus install labor.

The one that is loose may not come off, but I sure wouldn;t want to have to try and chase down one of them if it pulled off plus potential door damage from the wind tearing it off at high speed.

Regards
Mark D.
Stealth SEC