remove heating cooling chrome bezel and levers for bare body resto?

[rutger kohler]

Hi, my 280SL goes into the panelbeaters (body shop) on Monday for a bare body resto, I have removed all the paint, chrome etc and the interior so that only the steering wheel and the heating/cooling control leverss remain, on the dashboard front.

The heating/cooling controls and lighting, to same, work perfectly, however if I remove the front chrome bezel and controls I could get the dashboard front painted at the same time as the body.  The paintwork on front of the dashboard is ok but not perfect.  My question is how difficult is it to remove the the front bezel etc so that it can be painted, and how to go about it.

[Cees Klumper]

As I recall the bezel is 3-part and is held on by nuts (8mm or so) at the back. If memory serves me right, you can leave the levers in place as you remove the chrome pieces.

[ja17]

Yes, as Cees says, the bezel comes off in three pieces. One 10mm nut holds each piece. Access to the nuts is tricky. Move the heater controls to their "outer positions" and you will gain more room to remove the center nut. Move the heater controls to their inner positions to gain more access to the outer nuts. I use a short 10mm box end wrench on the nuts. Do not over-tighten the nuts during re-assembly the studs are pot-metal and will break off.

[Benz Dr.]

I think the nuts are 6mm. Studs in the bezels are steel that's encapsulated into the bezel. And yes, they can and will break off, although you would have to reef on them a bit to do that.

[rutger kohler]

Hi, thanks for the posts. guys. Will follow through with your suggestions.