Order of Installation: Grill before hood?

[Atazman]

Gentlemen.......

My 250 SL  is at the paint shop right now.  Previous to taking it there, I had removed the grill and the hood, along with all other "stuff" that I could.  My memory is not so good............when I install the grill and the hood, which should I install first?  I do know that I removed the hood first, and then the grill.

My recollection is that there are some difficult little screws that are hard to get to on the grill, and that the grill should be installed before the hood because you can't get to those screws with the hood in place?  Am I correct here?

But then logic tells me that the hood would be much easier to get aligned if I install it first, with access to the hinges/bolts through the grill area.

Any advice on best assembly approach will be apprciated.  Grill before the hood?  Or hood before the grill?

[waltklatt]

Very first thing to put back in, is motor, then radiator and A/C condenser before the grille and hood.
(Not sure of how much disassembly you have.)

Grille first, then grille screens and then hood. 

Walter
1967 220SL-diesel

[Atazman]

OK, Walter.  Thanks to you.

[66andBlue]

Don,
I am not sure whether your 250SL radiator has the oil cooler attached to it vertically on the driver site like the 280SL radiator has. That extra cooler blocks the access to the lower screw hole. 
If it does have that cooler then you'll have a heck of a time putting the lower attachment screw in with the radiator in place, there is no easy way to get it in! In that case I would go, grill first then radiator.
We just ran into this problem during the painting of the chassis.  The engine compartment was painted before the engine went in and everything was put in place to make the car drivable. But in order to get the driver site grill out it would have been necessary to remove the radiator to get at that screw. Fortunately the paint shop was willing to work around the problem by carefully bending the grill back and masking it separately.

[Atazman]

Thanks, Alfred, for the comments/warnings and picture.  I did not say earlier, but my radiator and engine are still in the vehicle.  Although my car is in the paint shop and I cannot look at it to see the exact location of that cooler you mentioned, I do believe it is located in a different spot.  In fact, I was able to remove that screw you pointed out without removing the radiator.

I may be good to go, but I did not want to spend a lot of time installing something....only to realize I had to remove it.  I appreciate the "heads up" on this, and will look everything over very carefully before I begin assmebly.  Hopefully that will be latter part of next week.