Thursday, June 28, 2007

Random Thoughts

Well, I was thinking the other day while driving (in my Benz) about the general condition of the car, and also about what I want to do on it in the future. While I was thinking I realized something. The car is mechanically very sound. Nothing major wrong with it, no safety issues, no reliability issues, really a great car.
The biggest mechanical issues with the car are pretty minor. One is the oil leak. The other is the waning climate control system.
The Oil Leak
Yeah, its a diesel; it leaks oil. That's what everyone tells me. I don't really mind the oil leak (its very minor), and it is in a non-critical part (the turbo drain tube), so why do I keep worrying about it? I guess its the black piece of cardboard in the garage that is protecting my concrete floor. It looks as if it is getting saturated, so I need to check underneath the cardboard soon to avoid a stained garage floor.
As far as fixing this, I tried last weekend. It didn't go so well. I got to the part, and saw the leak, but couldn't get much further. I think I need to take the turbo off to get the drain tube off, so the annoyance of the leak has not motivated me enough to go to all this trouble. I'm gonna change the oil soon anyway.
The A/C
The second mechanical issue is the A/C (or climate control). It blows cold air, sort of, except on really hot days, or if you try to adjust the temperature from anything other than "MIN". Now, this isn't a big deal, but I do enjoy a cold A/C on a hot day. I think that the issue with it stems from multiple problems with the entire climate control system.
One problem is a non-standard high pressure port. It's bigger than normal R134 high pressure ports and thus, will not take a standard cap to cover the port. I think it is leaking out of there. Result is I have to add a can of freon every two weeks or so.
Another problem is it just never gets really cold. I think my evaporator may be a little inefficient considering its age. I'll have to just live with this, cause I really don't want to take the dash out of the car right now.
Lastly, there is the lack of temperature adjustment. This is the smallest problem since I don't want it to get any warmer, just colder. Of course, at night when its 65F, it does get a little cool. I thinks its either the monovalve, or the control unit itself. Neither of these is particularly cheap, so I'll think about fixing this next year.
Conclusion
Yeah, its a good car. Am I complaining about small insignificant things? Yeah.
Are there other things wrong with it? Kinda, mostly cosmetic.
Am I gonna fix those? Probably not.

Do I still enjoy my new diesel? Definitely.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Removing the turbo is easier than I expected. I actualy have not removed mine, but I have put it back on the engine while it was on the driveway prior to putting my remanufactured engine back into the car.

The exhaust and intake manifolds share the same studs and nuts on these engines, so there are no hidden studs like I was concerned about when I decided to leave the turbo on the car.

I got partway once in removing the turbo so I could change the lower return tube (it's in two parts) and quit, but after putting the turbo back on I realized that I pretty much had the turbo off when I stopped the first time. I would suggest trying it.

Unknown said...

The hardest thing to get to in removing the turbo with the engine in the car may be the mounting bolt (10 mm head) on the back of the valve cover on the oil supply line that runs from the oil filter housing to the turbo. Everything else is pretty much straightforward.

The turbo gasket set I got from Performance Parts was short one of the big "O" rings that go on the short, 5 cm in diameter, tube that slips into the openings on the turbo and the intake manifold that carries the actual compressed air to the intake. Be sure you get two really big "O" rings in the set, because they are hard to get and very expensive.

Unknown said...

Don't try and remove the turbo with the oil supply line in place. Remove it by disconnecting it from the oil filter housing and the turbo and the two mounting bolts, one on a bracket that is attached to the same bolt as the right side of the rear engine hoist hook and the other on the air cleaner mounting bracket.

The Benz service manual suggests working around the supply tube, but that makes the job a lot harder.

Douglas said...

Thanks for those comments and encouragement. I am going to get to this pretty soon, but still haven't taken the time to order the parts and get it fixed.