As you can see from above I had to do the bumper chrome replacement on front and the back and have taken a few photos

This is the rear bumper of a 420SE 1988

I removed the 4 nuts from the bumper bolts in the boot and the whole thing slid off the side runners by pulling backwards.
The chromes are held on by nuts held in a cage and out of the 15 I only managed to save 8 in total but managed to get them all out using mole(vise)grips to hold the cage
The four on each side blade have 8mm heads and the rest have 10mm head
1st picture is still in place


This is a picture of the bolts and the spacers at the back to give the chrome support



This next picture is on the caged bolt


If you can manage to loosen the bolts the cage is then grippable with mole grips. with the cages that were OK I replaced the bolts with new and used marine grease on them As I had 8 I used these on the side blades and replaced the 10mm headed ones with M8 25mm bolts with large washers
I would recommend getting all the blades in place bolted in but not tight and then start with pushing the corners in place to fit the edge of the plastic first otherwise you could end up with a gap between chrome edge and plastic.
There is a large bolt holding the side blade to the main blade
I fitted the blades together and put the cover trims on before I inserted the whole thing into the bumper but left the fully tightening of this bolt until the end
From start to finish it took 2;30hrs 2/3rd of this was removing all the old rusted bolts.
For such a fantastic vehicle I will never understand why MB didnt use stainless steel for the blades. I understand the cost issue BUT!!

Thanks for the info and pictures. This is an upcoming job for me.

The Euro Chromes are still available AFAIK. My buddy and I ordered a replacement one for his C126 and it came and was perfect. Was only a couple hundred for the front center section.

Those nuts are a BITCH to R&R!

You are not wrong, the fronts took me twice as long as the rears but worth it in the end