Using Mercedes R170 Ashtray
 

If youve ever considered switching to an SLK ashtray and cubby this thread is for you.
When i bought my Crossfire the first thing to break, one day later, was the ashtray. I tried fixing it by ways found on here but it was not repairable, which was not what i wanted to see after wrangling that thing out of the dash. So i put a screw through it and left it perma-closed. Fast forward to now and im trying to fix things on it. I recently found not a crossfire but a SLK at a local auto yard and decided to cannibalize it for parts. I found the ashtray already removed, and not so carefully, because all of the screw tabs were broken off, but i decided to take it anyway. Looking at the part numbers on the crossfire and slk assembly, the main body of them have the same part number, whih means i could switch everything over, including the SLK's storage cubby, because apart from its styling, the dash in that area has a lot of wasted space concerning the passenger air bag and 12V socket.

Conversion:
Since the screw tabs were broken off i needed to take the pieces off the slk body and move it to the intact (besides the ashtray) crossfire body. The cubby of the slk, if you push from the back of it it will pop out of the front. In order to take off the ashtray slide, you have to remove the face/coin door. There are half circle arms that are clipped to the hinge, and on the opposing side there is a lifted piece of plastic used to hold it in place. I took pliers to hold that down while i unhooked the rest and the door comes off. After removing the band spring the astray should easily slide out backwards.
Removing the ashtray on the crossfire is the same process, except the hinge is on the door not the tray (You cant put the Xfire door on the SLK tray). Slide out the broken tray, then slide right in the slk tray and add the door and the spring. You should now have a working ashtray. Now remove the airbag light and socket by pushing in the retaining tabs and they should slide out. Chrysler made an adapter to hold their trim in the same spot, its a little black box that clips into the original body, i made the mistake of removing the trim face itself from the adapter first, but everything just clips together. After removing the trim and adapter the SLK cubby will slide right in. The new assembly bolts in just the same

Issues:
Now besides the color difference, the SLK assembly is not as built up as the crossfire, it is much lower profile so now compared to the Xfire dash, it is a tad recessed. With this the ash tray door is behind the upper trim for the radio and it just barely wont clear. My fix was to raise up the trim panel ever so slightly (You cant even tell) and it'll have enough clearance to slide freely. The smooth transition into the shifter trim also is lost. I've now lost my 12V outlet, so if you have an aftermarket radio you can plug your phone there, i'm using a battery pack (ironically placed in the cubby where the plug was) until i wire in a new 12V outlet probably in the center console area. Despite these issues though, i feel that it was worth it, for added storage, a now working ashtray, and also making my Crossfire unique from others. I do plan on changing the color on my dash and ill have my SLK assembly match but until then it'll just be different.��
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