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Mercedes CLS55 AMG Engine Painting Surge Tanks, Valve Covers and Supercharger 55K M113 E55 W219 W211

A quick DIY on how to freshen up the engine bay of any 55K AMG engined car by re-painting the Supercharger, Surge Tanks and Valve Covers.

What You Need

  • Replacement Gaskets for Valve Covers (required) and Surge Tanks (optional but recommended). Part numbers can be found here.

1. Valve Covers

These are the most involved as they require changing the gaskets and opening up the valve train. I suggest coinciding this job with the valve cover seal and breather tank re-seal job as/when the engine requires it (all M113 and M112 engines will develop a leak here at some point!).

See this post for details on removing the valve covers, cleaning them and resealing them properly.

While they are separated, spray the breather tank covers and valve covers. Ensure you don’t get any paint under the valve cover or inside the breather tank area to prevent it flaking over time and getting into the engine. I used some blu-tac to block the holes on the breather cover.

Re-seal them as per the post above and reinstall onto the car checking for leaks.

2. Surge Tanks

These require a T30 bit to remove. Remember the position of these bolts as they are all of varying lengths and will not fit (and may cause damage when reinstalling) if positioned incorrectly.

Loosen the jubilee clip on the rear hose connecting the surge tank to the engine with a stubby flat blade screwdriver. The entire tank will lift off – be careful as it is common for a lot of small debris to get trapped between the supercharger and the surge tank – you do not want any of this to fall into the intake manifold. Hoover any loose particles and dirt immediately, remove the gasket and cover the inlet holes with a cloth or rag.

 

Mask off the hose connector sections of the surge tanks and the inlet holes at the bottom before spraying.

I chose to spray them black and to sand off the lettering ///AMG to a brushed silver look for contrast.

Reinstalling is the reverse of removal (you can use new gaskets like I did or re-use the old ones). Torque the screws to 20Nm in a star pattern being careful to reinsert them in the correct position.

If you want to spray the supercharger – do it before reinstalling the surge tanks as it makes it a lot easier!

3. Supercharger

You need to mask off and cover all areas of the engine bay as the spray paint will get everywhere. Wrap all hoses and electrical components and cover the AMG engraving plaque on the top of the supercharger. The paint should not get on anything other than the supercharger. Obviously you will not be able to get to every part of the unit while it is installed but 90% of it is fine since once the rest of the surrounding components are reinstalled, you can only see about 20% of it anyway!

The best way to do this is to remove the supercharger but I am not covering that here – it is a fairly big job.

 

Everything painted being reinstalled

You can see the painted surge tanks with polished lettering, silver supercharger and silver valve covers. Unfortunately, with the OEM intake most of it is all covered up!

Tags: 55kamgblackcolourcoverenginegasketshigh temperaturekompressorM113M113Kmaskingmercedespaintsilverspraysuperchargersurge tanksvalve cover
Leonard: British Canadian, electronic engineer and tech enthusiast who is obsessively involved in the world of technology, cars and music. Some say he needs help. He says F1 is a key for cowards.