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The saga continues! Fuel pump and related stuff is right around the corner, but my new Löwe IACV has arrived! On the surface, it looks to be a dead ringer for my old one.  Some very slight differences I can see on the inside:  But that might just as well be because the old one is broken. They feel slightly different as well; when shaking them the "weight" inside shifts more surely in the new unit. Mounting it was a breeze, and I got some findings.
Those last points are on the list because my first successful test drive revealed that my temperature gauge is now all of a sudden dead. Because of my fan issues, this is a problem, so it must be fixed. I guess I must have touched some poorly connected wires while fumbling about to install the unit in the first place, so I removed it to try to gain access. Long story short I guess I need a new sender unit for my temperature gauge, but I'm preeeeeetty confused about the whole "let's increase idle speed to 1600 lol" thing that happened after I did nothing but take it out and stick it back in (with just some experimenting with "what happens without it" and "what happens if it's in but unplugged" in between). Fingers crossed that it'll sort itself out. At least the new unit seems to work! Ah, and another weird thing. When I removed the hoses going into the air filter housing, this happened:  That's... rust? Inside the secondary filter, which is just attached to an air pump in the bottom of the engine that isn't even running? Here's the other side of that hole:  So that black tube with orange dust inside it is literally just part of that small, orange filter. I am once more confused.
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May 17, 2020 10:28
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If the ECU isn't getting an accurate coolant temp reading, it's going to cause all sorts of fuckery with idle speed and fueling.
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May 17, 2020 17:04
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Yeah, the book says the same thing. It's also suggesting incorrect fuel pressure (so fingers crossed for that new pump and filter), faulty lambda control (which could theoretically be a thing with my exhaust leak), or various air leaks. But at this point I'm actually starting to feel like I'm working my way through the issues, rather than desperately grasping, so that's awesome!
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May 17, 2020 21:16
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angryrobots posted:If the ECU isn't getting an accurate coolant temp reading, it's going to cause all sorts of fuckery with idle speed and fueling. You are thinking too modern. "mature" vehicles like this one generally have separate temperature sensors for the gauge and for the ECU so not having a working gauge might mean nothing to the engine 
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May 17, 2020 21:54
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Oh well yeah that's possibly true lol. I can tune a carb and I can work with OBD2... The poo poo in between is like Pandora's box IMO.
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May 17, 2020 23:21
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My Mazda of the era had three temperature sensors (although the fan one was probably just a switch). That doesn't mean that's how the Mercedes is but it's a possibility.
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May 17, 2020 23:58
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Mine actually only has one for everything, and it's this little fellow, sitting on top of the thermostat housing (sort of): I was sort of worried that the wiring was shot, but decided to try a new sensor anyway. It's a cheap enough little part, and it turned out to be stupidly easy to replace. I don't think I spent more than 3-4 minutes working on it. I spent a lot more time beforehand just making sure I knew what it looked like, where it was, and so on.  One might say there's a very slight difference between old and new... For all I know the problem was just caused by a bad connection, and maybe I could have cleaned the connector on the old one up and made it work. But I replaced it, and I'm happy I did. My temp gauge is back in action, and the weird idling issues went almost completely away. Also, I got a brand new octopus!  My plug wire kit! The cargo hold turned out to be the best place available to lay all the wires out and sort them by length, so I could match the lengths of the old ones to the new. That also let me take this picture, comparing the insides of the bit that goes on the spark plugs:  New ones are on top. That becomes a whole lot more obvious when I turn on the flash and move in for a closer look:  So yeah, it was about time to replace all of those. Wait, what's that sound?  Oh poo poo it's the misfire police! Well that's okay, they've got nothing on me anymore, and I honestly had no idea this engine was supposed to run this smoothly. It's like an entirely different car. Not just because of the wires, or the IACV, or the temp sensor, or whatever, but it's way improved from just a week or two ago. It feels insanely satisfying to finally find and eliminate actual problems, and to feel the results.It still idles a bit higher than I think it's supposed to, and there are other... odd issues going on as well. Some weird stumbling at low speed, and a flat-out refusal to not rumble forwards unless I actively push the brake pedal. Something going on with the throttle link adjustment, I suspect, and I'm still not convinced fuel pressure is what it ought to be. But with some luck, tomorrow will be the day I get to the bottom of the fuel pump assembly situation. I have a good feeling about that.
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May 20, 2020 23:05
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👏🏻
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May 20, 2020 23:14
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Pursesnatcher posted:It still idles a bit higher than I think it's supposed to, and there are other... odd issues going on as well. Some weird stumbling at low speed, and a flat-out refusal to not rumble forwards unless I actively push the brake pedal. Might be a vac leak in the brake booster that goes away when you push the pedal due to a check valve or something. Try clamping off the booster vac line and see if it makes the engine run better. But be careful because after about the third pump your brake pedal effort will skyrocket. To temporarily clamp lines I use a needle nose vise grip with rubber hose pushed on to the jaws. That way you can squish a rubber line with no damage. Good for coolant lines and vac lines and such.
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May 20, 2020 23:43
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Do you have a CIS fuel pressure tester? I sold mine to someone here a while back, but it was super useful for troubleshooting my VWs. IIRC, whoever I sold it to was working on a Mercedes. Also, I've got a dwell meter, not sure if it's worth trying to ship it from the USA, but you're welcome to it.
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May 22, 2020 14:36
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Vacuum leaks; yeah, I probably have a ton. I've been meaning to try cataloging the entire inventory of rubber in the car, but I also keep finding new bits of the stuff, so that's kind of an eternal project in and of itself. I also recently got confirmed that vac leaks are also a likely explanation for the rough shifting I keep getting. My gearbox, turns out, was originally made for the S-class, so I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to give the whole car a jolt every other shift. But it (like seemingly just about everything else) also "runs" on vacuum for control.  sharkytm posted:Do you have a CIS fuel pressure tester? I sold mine to someone here a while back, but it was super useful for troubleshooting my VWs. IIRC, whoever I sold it to was working on a Mercedes. That I do not! If swapping out these next fuel parts don't work, though, I think the next step is going to be a smoke test at a shop, since air leaking somewhere is becoming a more and more likely culprit according to the book. I was hoping to try the swap yesterday, but ended up being too tired after a trip to the range – and today is too cold and wet for the man with no garage! As for dwell meter, I really appreciate it, but I'm pretty sure international freight is more expensive than me just picking up one here. But thanks for the offer! Oh, and I dared to try taking the car out on the highway, for some high speed and high RPM's. It really feels and sounds like a race car engine. Which is the weirdest sensation after two years of it feeling like (at best) a beaten old truck engine.
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May 22, 2020 18:31
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Pursesnatcher posted:Wait, what's that sound? There you go! Bravo!!
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May 23, 2020 01:47
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Who knew changing a fuel filter could be so much work? And I'm not even done, but I'm almost there, I hope. The first steps were pretty simple. I'm replacing everything but the accumulator, so I needed to salvage that.  Easy enough, though someone could have warned me that this end spews a high-pressure gas-gas once you plop off the rubber hose. I thought it was supposed to hold liquid, but apparently not?  Hose disconnected, I grabbed some aluminum foil to blind off everything. Don't want insects or spores or whatever going into my fuel system.  On the other end, someone had been kind enough to mount it using blue loctite. I suppose I'll do the same when I reassemble. Alright, so that was 1/3; cool.  Next up, fuel pump. I'm going to keep it around just in case, so gently plop off another rubber tube.  Turn it around, banjo bolt comes off easily. This has been a breeze so far! Then we get to this absolute piece of poo poo.  So I'm very happy I bought a new steel tube of the kind you see to the right there, because it's just bloody welded to the fuel filter. It is not coming off. And it's rusted enough that I kept bending it just by trying to remove it; fine, gently caress it, leave it on. But then I've got to detach the fuel line coming out to the left there, which was also drat near impossible. I spent way too long, and way too much penetrating oil, with not a lot of luck. Finally I just soaked it, wrapped a soaked rag around it, and left it overnight.  And we have victory! Partial, anyways. Using a pipe wrench to grab onto the actual filter housing, I was eventually able to force the line sort of free. However, the brass nut thing going into the filter also came off. Keep in mind that I'm working inside a wheel well, with an eight inch long pipe doing its other thing on the other end of the filter, two loose fuel hoses and some wires for the pump all flopping around – so I decided that just getting the filter housing out of the way should be priority one. You can also see how fragile the rubber fuel line going into the steel line looks; I couldn't be too rough.  Alright. Filter out of the way. But now the end of my fuel line looks like this:  And I guess that's some aluminum shavings from the filter housing.  So this is now. I was finally able to slap a big nice socket onto the bit I want gone, but I am just completely unable to budge it. In fact, I am partially tempted to remove this brass thing's counterpart from my new filter, and just stick it in there. Especially since I'm not super excited about getting penetrating oils inside this bit of fuel line. But I don't know. Any thoughts?
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Jun 1, 2020 13:20
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That brass-looking fitting is supposed to stay with the filter. That's why there's a flare fitting leading to it. You'd have to spin the filter (like you did) instead of just tightening the flare nut. You need to get the fitting out of the flare if at all possible. Penetrating oil isn't going to hurt the fuel line or the car. It's such low-volume and the car will just burn it. And yes, fuel lines love to spray fuel. Wrap the tool in a rag next time. Gas tastes bad and burns the eyes.
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Jun 1, 2020 17:16
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Yeah, I figured it was supposed to stay in the filter, since the new one already has one. If I can't get that fitting loose, I think the best option might actually be replacing that whole little fuel line it's stuck in as well. I'm going to want to change fuel filters again in the next 17 years, after all... All right, more oil it is! As far as the spraying of fuel goes, it hasn't been too bad, except for that pressurized jet of gaseous, non-liquid gas  (it still tasted terrible though)
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Jun 1, 2020 17:36
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Alright so this absolute unit of junk, pain and suffering: ...has after a few days of incessant freeze cycles (hence the frost on the image above), hosings with penetrating oil, rubbings with a steel brush, and even more penetrating oil, turned into this:  Yes! I actually had a friend come over today with his whole collection of breaker bars, steel pipes, interesting pliers and even-tougher penetrating oils, and we were set up to really go to town on this little brass shitling. With the tools laid out in front of is, what transpired next was that I put a socket over the fitting and a wrench on the nut, and he was just feeling it to make sure the socket wrench was set to click the right way. And it all just suddenly came apart with no trouble at all. Kind of an anticlimax, but on the flip side, my friend might be Superman! Or maybe the soaking-in-oil trick really works, if you just do it long enough.  Anyway, with our afternoon of sweaty fun and anguish thus ruined, all that was really left was to reassemble the cradle with new parts and stuff! Great!  New filter! Sweet! Keep in mind that this, a simple fuel filter change, was what kicked off the latest chapter in this saga.  New three-way pipe thing! Cool! The reason they look nothing alike anymore is that I had to try getting poo poo loose from the old one, and poo poo did not want to get loose.  New cradle! Awesome! If you notice a conspicuous lack of screws and plastic bracket in the new one, you are more perceptive than... others.  Even new rubber rings to hang the cradle from! So nice! As a matter of fact the old ones still held an impressive amount of flex. High-quality rubber, Mercedes rubber is.  And finally, new fuel pump! Probably superfluous, or maybe not, but the new one is prettier at least. That''s got to count for something. Alright. Time to slap everything back together. It's really pretty self-explanatory. Stick the copper rings where they used to be, remember to slather some blue Loctite on the connection to the accumulator, like it used to be...  Alright nice, then oh man shitballs there aren't any screws to actually stick the cradle back together? Great. Magical. Fine, so let's spend some time carefully restoring the old screws as best as we're able. One of them is a bit too worn, really, but whatever. We're good to go! Right?  Right? Hang on, let's have another look at that new filter. poo poo. poo poo.
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Jun 3, 2020 20:56
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Am i totally missing something or is it just upside down? It even has an arrow on it that shows it goes the other way. I could be way off base.
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Jun 3, 2020 21:13
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everdave posted:Am i totally missing something or is it just upside down? It even has an arrow on it that shows it goes the other way. I could be way off base. That's what I thought, initially. But no, it's just missing the banjo screw which is supposed to connect it to that steel pipe. Of much greater concern is the fact that they gave me a filter that's way smaller than the one it's supposed to be replacing!
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Jun 3, 2020 22:14
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I would not be super concerned that the filter was smaller if it fits right otherwise, hopefully you can just get that missing part.
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Jun 4, 2020 00:46
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everdave posted:I would not be super concerned that the filter was smaller if it fits right otherwise, hopefully you can just get that missing part. Except that it won't fit in the fuckin' bracket. That sucks dude. Hope you can get the right stuff and it helps somewhat with how it runs.
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Jun 4, 2020 01:18
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Pursesnatcher posted:That's what I thought, initially. But no, it's just missing the banjo screw which is supposed to connect it to that steel pipe. Of much greater concern is the fact that they gave me a filter that's way smaller than the one it's supposed to be replacing! gently caress it. Got an old tire around there anywhere? Cut a few pieces to fit and jam them in there. The last two years of '97-'03 ('04 in Heritage trim) Ford F-150's had the front fuel lines (up to the filter) from the 150 and the rear half (filter back) from a Lincoln Navigator, sometimes the other way around. Imagine my surprise when the new filter didn't fit. Finally found a use for that stack of junk tires in the back yard! Small question about how you got the filter off: did you bleed pressure from the system first, or did I miss that part?
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Jun 4, 2020 01:29
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I was going to suggest the same thing. Cut up tire, sheet rubber, just something soft but reasonably stable to make up the gap and let the clamp close down tight.
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Jun 4, 2020 04:21
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Tires: I did shoot my winter wheels a few hungry glances, but ended up passing on that option. I'm thinking the proper filter has like 40-50% more internal volume than the one I'm stuck with, which I guess could impact throughput?madeintaipei posted:Small question about how you got the filter off: did you bleed pressure from the system first, or did I miss that part? Only by unplugging that one hose from the accumulator Apparently having high pressure benzene gas (how do you even refer to gas when it's not a liquid?) instead of fuel coming out of the accumulator, like I did, could be a sign of a pressure issue in my tank. Some kind of charcoal filter thing is supposed to work to equalize pressure, but... that's not happening. Filter and pump had lots of (unpressurized) fuel in them though, so it's probably nothing terribly important.
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Jun 4, 2020 06:24
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Pursesnatcher posted:how do you even refer to gas when it's not a liquid? Petrol fumes or vapours?
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Jun 4, 2020 19:54
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Fumes works! I don't often pull the "not a native speaker" card, but when I do, I get gas-gas in my face. But today I've got good news and bad news! Good news: My new filter arrived! Finally! And hot drat, it even fits in the cradle. Which was unexpected! As it turns out, my filter originally went out of production when new technology (and loving liquor in the gasoline) brought about a new kind of filter, which was smaller and more environmentally friendly. To compensate for the smaller footprint, a sleeve was produced. Then Mercedes decided the sleeve was a waste of money, so they stopped making it, with predictable results. After many years of this kind of bullshit going back and forth between manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz, everyone else and God, we're back to having correctly sized filters available. No wonder my parts shop got confused. Anyway. Having learned some hard lessons from trying to screw the old filter out, I began the whole reassembly by screwing the new filter in. After checking the diameter, duh.  Alright, we're good. I did get scared that this would be a new point of failure, but it did fit. Right, so we're moving on. Oh, one more thing first:  This is where the other end of that rubber tube in the previous pic ends up. I did check in case I were to rupture the rubber, and I can get a new one. The problem, as evident here, would be attaching the new one. So I kept on being careful. Alright so now we're moving on.  New screws! Since waiting for the filter took forever, I managed to find some stainless nuts and bolts to replace the worn-out old ones that remained in the cradle. Of course I forgot to get a replacement for the single most worn-out one, but whatever. They might not be OEM, but neither is that flathead.  On the topic of new screws, the new banjo screw for the filter has an oddly dissimilar geometry from the old one. I'm just going to assume some engineer thought this through, and that it's fine.  The moment of truth. We slide the cradle-pump-accumulator-assembly over the new filter, and... it looks good? It looks great, really. It looks magical. Hell yes. I'm even able to slide the rubber hose coming out of the filter into the rubber hose clamps on the cradle, unlike the nitwit who replaced the drat thing back in 2003. When the car was just ten years old. Damnit.  Of course attaching the hose the right way and so on just meant I couldn't get the protective cap off of the other end of this filter, and slide the banjo screw on. But live, learn, all that. After some mucking about, the business end here comes together, and I don't have a torque wrench handy, so I'm really just winging everything at this point. But the copper washers look just squeezed enough, and that's good enough for me. Fine. Keep plopping things back onto other things, tightening probably-properly, and at long last – ten months after I decided to change the fuel filter – we get from this:  To that. It's a magnificent sight. If I do say so myself. All right, so that's the good news. What are the bad news? Bad news:  So yeah, uh, that's a thing. Did I mention 98 RON gas is $8 a gallon? Joking aside, when everything was assembled, I gathered up a fire extinguisher, a ton of paper towels, a prayer, and my car keys. It even said to check for leaks on the actual filter, so I was afraid there might be some droplets forming, which was why I mounted the camera beforehand. ...and then I got a bit more than some droplets. On the plus side, I'm pretty confident there aren't any leaks on any of the other five potential points of failure on this thing. But I'm still at a loss as to what to do next. I'm worried that if I tighten the hose clamp on that decades-old piece of rubber going over the fuel pump there, it will just cut into it and make the problem worse somehow. Initially I was concerned that that had been my error all along, but by looking at the recordings, it's obvious that the leak comes from the fact that the rubber is not sealing properly over the actual pump. Am I being a pussy? Should I just squeeze that rubber tight; clamp that clamp down harder? Do I need to replace the whole operation that this piece of rubber is connected to? It's hard to tell! I did pressurize with a few cranks, and a few more cranks, before that clip. I spotted the leak, tried adjusting, and it still leaked. Tried tightening the clamp some more, and then I got this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJFRA5kZjII Then I had several beers.
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Jun 17, 2020 23:33
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Hah it's beer o clock for sure.
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Jun 17, 2020 23:57
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Fast forward to after you try and half-rear end anything to do with decades old fuel hose, how much will the replacement hose run you? Because there's no way I'd drive that without replacing that.
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Jun 18, 2020 00:06
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cakesmith handyman posted:Fast forward to after you try and half-rear end anything to do with decades old fuel hose, how much will the replacement hose run you? Assuming it's available (a toss-up at this point), list price seems to be between $150-200. And much like this situation: The real question is if I'd be able to attach it to the next piece of line
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Jun 18, 2020 00:12
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Okay, so what does that connect to? There's got to be good at some point, I really don't want the next update to be "awesome wagon burnt to the ground, bought a French sedan instead"
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Jun 18, 2020 06:59
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It goes around the corner, then connects to another hose:
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Jun 18, 2020 07:05
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Yep, it's pretty much all rust and corners at this point :p No, but I honestly don't know. I know one of them goes all the way into the engine, and is made from two generic MB lines and one unobtainium AMG line. The other one is likely similarly arranged. Finding an obtainable MB line, if it should prove necessary, and jamming it in in place of the AMG one should be feasible, but I would need to lift the car up a good bit to be able to work on it. It's a right pickle, but that leaking connection has pretty thick-looking rubber on it. Tightening the clamp around it and/or superglue might be all I need. At least the PO would have fixed it that way, judging by all the super glue I keep finding. Edit: I'm not actually going to try fixing a fuel leak with glue, of course. Pursesnatcher fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 07:35
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That mad Irishman who does the stop motion photography restorations of his car touched on this insane system doing a W123 restoration that might help you out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgrJvsS4KDM
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Jun 18, 2020 08:40
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 18:08 |
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Super-quick good-news update: I was just being a pussy, and tightening the clamp down a lot harder actually removed the leak! And that's a good thing, because if not, the part I would have needed is not available anywhere. I have also discovered a new and interesting general weakness with the G-class which I did not know about. The part where this is good news is that I seem to have narrowly escaped a terrible rust trap by discovering it now instead of later. Also the mad Irishman's voice makes me feel soothed and content. My one regret is that I now realize I should have painted the cradle. But that's all right.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:22
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