The RCI Racing tank arrived yesterday, but none of the fittings have. In addition, there is no tracking number on the Killer Chiller as of now. That being said, it is highly doubtful that the KC setup will be in the car in time for the Tail of the Dragon Crossfire meet next weekend. *sigh*

Work did begin on fitting the SLK55 brakes. I ran into problems, right off the bat. First off, the retaining hole for the rotor to the hub is mirrored from the earlier car's hub. In other words, if the rotor retaining bolt is to the right of the wheel bolt hole on the R170 (Crossfire), it is to the left on the SLK55. As I type this on my lunch break at work, I am hoping I am not about to feel stupid about the rest of what I am about to say, because it is somewhat growing in my head that in reality there is a left and right rotor with swapped holes, and therefore none of the rest of this was even necessary. I think I'm correct, so I will boldly lay out the rest of my stupidity. @QuadPrism was around to witness some of this. I suspect he is about to have a good laugh at my expense. [img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7[/img]

So, in typical fashion of not having enough time, rest or patience going into such a project, I started by centering a punch mark on where the hole should be on the R170 hub for the R171 rotor. I drilled a pilot hole, and then did not like its centering with the rotor put on.

I rotated the hub.

The a new location was marked for a hole, and drilled. Most of the way through tapping for threads, the tap broke off! After spending 30 minutes hopelessly attempting to remove it, the tap was abandoned in the hub, and ground flat with the hub surface.

I rotated the hub.

I drilled a new hole, counter sunk it, tapped it. Put the rotor up to mount it, saw that it was perfectly centered. Awesome. Got the rotor retention bolt, and it slipped in. Not threaded in. Slipped in. Good grief, what have I done?

*sigh*

I picked up the wrong bolt when determining tap size, and therefore drilled and tapped too big of a hole.

I did not rotate the hub.

Grabbing a used hub from the parts SRT-6 (which has since been crushed, BTW), I much more carefully marked a hole, drilled the correct size, countersunk the correct size, and tapped the correct size. I didn't even break a tap off this time. The rotor mounted up without issue. A test fit of the caliper showed that it bolts right on, and the Goodridge stainless steel line (for an R170) fits in the caliper properly. The wheel won't clear the caliper. A spacer is needed. Out of time for the evening, I left everything as-is, and will attack the right side tonight. I believe as little as a 3mm spacer might do the trick. I think I have a pair of 5mm spacers on hand. I'm a little concerned about losing space on the hub for centering the wheel, but will check to see if this is an actual problem before getting too excited about it.

My next concern is the master cylinder. The SLK55 master cylinder will be here tomorrow. From the earlier post, it appears that while they look identical on the outside, the R170 uses a 1.000" bore piston, and the SLK55 (and all later R171 and R172) uses a 1.812" piston. The SLK55 uses these 4-pot front calipers, and the same 2-pot rear calipers that the AMG R170 uses. So, the conundrum is whether to stick with the R170 MC, or switch over to the SLK55 MC, not knowing what the effect on the ABS proportioning might be. Anyone have any experience or opinions?

Also tonight, work will continue on the switch panels for the SLK55 seats. The R170 switches have been successfully grafted in, and now the final sanding and painting of the panels needs to happen. The seats should go in tomorrow or Saturday.