Stanky

In the popular passtime of fiddling while rome burns, I've been working on a new set of wheels for the Daihatsu. I got these from @The Moog about a month ago, they are a set of MX5 NA Enkei 'Daisies' which helpfully have the same stud pattern, centre bore and rim width as what the Daihatsu uses, with the only difference being 5mm ET between the two sets. I'm going to have the Enkei's sandblasted and powder coated, but wanted to try out some colour ideas before I commit to the coating being done, so behold V1.0 of the new look The tyres are scrap, but hold air so are OK for the purposes of mocking it up. The actual rims are 14" rather than the stock 15" wheels on the Daihatsu. I'm aiming to get some 185/60r14s to fit to these rims, as they are incredibly close to the rolling radius/diameter of the current 175/50r15s, and some 5mm spacers so the new rims sit where the old ones do (the new wheels are ET45, the factory ones are ET40) I don't particularly like the factory Team Dynamics wheels, they're OK size-wise, but have 7 thin spokes which really only serve to show just how puny the front brake discs an calipers are. The Enkei's have much fatter spokes so hide the front rotors much better. One of the factory wheels is visible in the foreground of the 3rd picture for reference. I'm not sure whether to try a rattle can of a darker matte bronze colour rather than the copper colour?

Next you'll tell me they have a lower rear arm on the front! Thanks, I'll go and have a good look at the weekend, is it something that can be lubricated, or it is just a case of replacement?

Thanks, the squeak is definitely coming from the rear on my S203, I'll try and have another look at the weekend. Its something that needs the weight of the car on the ground to identify, so I really need an inspection pit to be able to isolate what it is thats making the racket.

Thanks yes you're quite right - but I think it gives a narrow-ish band of 2004-2005 cars to hunt through, and then I'm basically paying for a car thats approx 3 years less old than what I already have so I just end up going round and round in circles. Helpfully* the decision has been taken out of my hands because my eldest daughter's mattress has suddenly and catastrophically fallen to bits and the shower surround in the en suite has begun leaking, saturating the floor under the lino and dripping through into the living room. So all possibility of new cars has gone right out the window for the foreseeable future. Marvellous. Ever keen to compound my misery, I took the daihatsu out last night and the front nearside brake caliper is binding, so that will want attention sharpish. I hope its just a case of strip it, grease the sliders and rebuild (which probably only takes an hour) but after the run of luck I;ve had I'm fully expecting it to be new caliper time, in which case I should probably replace both of them in one go which is another £150 I could do without spending. Maybe I'll just say goodbye to my material possessions and family and become a wandering Sadhu, wearing just a loincloth and subsisting mostly on smoking pot?

Mannol 5w30 fully synthetic in the blue container is 229.5 rated, but for what it's worth, I found you got about 0.3 seconds of cam chain chatter with it from a cold start. I've now swapped to use semi synthetic 10w40 Mannol which is only 229.3 rated, but zero cam chain noise even on a cold startup after days sitting unused. No noticeable difference otherwise. This is on a M111.951 engine though, I assume yours is an M271? I plan to monitor, but I tend to only do 5-8k between oil changes

Since the weather has turned colder the creak of misery has returned in the Mercedes. It comes from the drivers side rear over poor surfaces or when I get in or out of the car (no smart-arse comments about me being a fatknacker!) and is a bit annoying. So I set to yesterday to sort it in the time-honoured way which is squirting penetrating oil around the spring perches and hoping for the best. I took the back wheels off one at a time and sprayed oil up into the rear spring mounts and also some on the mounts on the lower arms too, previously this has sorted the creak out for a good 12 months or so, but not today. Dropped it back down, grabbed the roof rails and violently shook the car from side to side to work the oil in and its sort of made it a bit* better but the creak is still there. Its worse on the driver side, but both sides are a bit squeaky. So on to DEFCON 4, the job I dodged last time. Removing the rear ARB bushes for inspection and lubing up with silicone grease. I could only face doing one of them because its such a wretched job so went with the drivers side as the creak is worse. put the car on the tilting lift, wheel off (again...) and then undid the C-shaped bracket holding the bushing on. This involves a 12mm ring spanner to hold the not-captive nut and then winding out the e-torx bolt slowly because the tread is exposed to the elements and the thread of all full of crust. There are 2 of these, naturally. Eventually, after much penetrating oil and working back and forth the bolts were removed and the bushing peeled off. Helpfully, they are manufactured with a split, so with a bit of prying, I was able to get the bushing off the ARB and could clean up the ingrained crust with a round file and slather the inner surface with silicone grease. Then grease the ARB, wriggle the bushing back on (with greasy hands) and then carefully clean the threads of the e-torx bolt and not-captive nut, work it in and out in the bench vice and then refit the 2x nuts & bolts to secure the bushing to the car body with a C-shaped bracket, refit the wheel and then lower the car back down. Then remove the tilting lift and grab the roof rails and violently shake back and forth to make sure the creak had gone. Had it gone? Had it fuck. ULTRABASTARD. So it must be coming from one the myriad suspension linkages/arms in the rear suspension, not sure which, not sure I care any more. Its in for an MOT in January so I'll see if they pick anything up, but I don't fancy replacing any of the various suspension arms if they're not MOT-failingly bad. The creak is irritating but I'm not a total masochist. I've not yet bothered looking at the cam magnet, incidentally.

"Aerodynamically questionable"?

G-Wiz is my guess!

is it grumbling about the ESP, BAS and ABS being inoperative on the display panel? Thats what mine (admittedly older) did when one of the rear ABS sensors went funny. Replacing it was actually really easy, and <£20 for a genuine used part from ebay.

OOOOF! I had a Mk1 Punto with the 100ELX engine and it was a brilliant car, all the toys and went like stink. I've said this before but the spring under the accelerator is exactly the same as the one from a clicky ballpoint pen. My brother used to berate me that I drove it at 90mph on the motorways, I said that that was where it wanted to be, this continued until one day I made him drive it back from West London to the south coast and after that he did have to concede I was right and thats just how it wanted to be. The place your foot sits, balanced by the spring pushing the pedal back up in 5th is about 90mph. It did massively blow it head gasket and got sold, but these days I'd have slung some k-seal in and I bet it would have been fine. Oh the folly of youth. Anyway, mega jealous!

Door lock spring replacement guide can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqqYk89vSIU I thought I'd documented it but only the distress mid-job when I couldn't get the myriad cables to go back properly. Thread here: Basically door card off, inner sound deadening off, speaker, EW switches, all the gubbinz, drill the heads off the rivets which hold the airbag to the door and unplug it (which is sketchy AF because its right in your face), then undo the lock module from the inner door and ease it out the inner door via one of the holes. IIRC it involves making the window go up and down a few times for access to things? Once its out, you need some needle-nose pliers or the grabber things on the YT vid to grab the remnants of the old spring and to get the new spring into place, then refitting is the reversal of removal. I bought the kit with 4x springs and the grabber things, I'm not sure where they went, I have a feeling I may have posted the spare spring and grabber to another shiter? You'll need some 4.8mm rivets to refit the airbag module to the door frame, or rivnuts and m8 stubby bolts. Again, you're doing this with your face about 3" from the airbag module which gave me the fear, but it worked out OK in the end. An awful of of disassembly and reassembly for the sake of a tiny spring, but its pretty pleasing once its fixed. I'd say that taking it slowly, its probably 4h of work start-to-finish? You might do it in 2h if you know what you're doing. BTW, ignore the YT videos with maniacs hacking bits of the inner door frame off with grinders, you categorically do NOT need to do that. Its fiddly, but the lock module will come out and go back in the lower of the 2 holes. Buy the Also also, the door release cable must go over the TOP of the airbag module when you put it all back together, otherwise its too tight and the door won't latch closed.

hahaha, yes, I discovered this the hard way on my 2001 S203 too! I did however discover a Depeche Mode album in drawer #4 so not all bad.

This week the hand brake release has looked like this The good ole' bit-of-wire-poking-out-a-hole-in-the-dash look. I mean to be honest it actually worked fine - grip the outer sheath with one hand and pull the inner cable with the other and the parking brake released perfectly. However it wasn't ideal. As an aside before I go on, what is the law around handbrake release mechanisms. Would this pass an MOT? The issue was that the handbrake release lever was broken. It comes in 2 parts, pulling out horizontally to tug on the inner cable and unlatch the foot pedal, and de-tension the cable running to the rear handbrake shoes. Taking my one to bits showed that one of the 'ears' that attaches the inner section to the inside of the dashboard had snapped already, and I managed to snap the other one getting it out. I ordered a 2nd hand one from ebay for £12 which pitched up yesterday The old one, with snapped off ears is on the left, the new one in the centre, and the bit you hold on the right. Step one was chocking the car and releasing the handbrake, the popping the side of the dashboard off to expose one of the fuseboxen I undid the retaining screw and pushed it down out of the way to allow access to the inner dashboard. First step was to wiggle the new inner release handle thing into place and screw it into position with 2 flanged torx screws through the lower dashboard You can see I then pilled the bowden cable through the slotted bit of the release handle mech. This is where it got fiddly. The next bit you have to pull on the cable to pull through as much slack as possible, then slide the release handle into the inner bit, pop the 'bobbled' end into a recess in the release handle, then wiggle the bowden cable into a Z-shaped slot to stop it popping out while in use. To do this, you need toddler hands and a fearsome grip to keep it all in position while you wiggle a tight inner bowden cable into the channel. All accessed through the side of the dashboard. After a bit of swearing and some needle-nose pliers and a small screwdriver were used, it all popped into place Which is kinda visible here, if you know what you're looking for? At this stage I tried depressing the foot pedal and was slightly* vexed to find it popped back up immediately, so the release cable was too tight, even with the release handle all the way in. I then wiggled the outer bowden cable sheath a bit* and there was a clonk as the sheath slid further down the cable and then it worked fine. I think the sheath had ridden up too far, and just needed re-seating at the pedal end. With this done, the foot pedal stayed depressed and popped up correctly when the release handle was pulled. I squirted a little bit of chain oil into the 1" or so of cable and worked it in and out of the sheath a bit for good measure. Then refitted the fuse panel and closed the side panel. It all works correctly now, hopefully for a while. I put a for sale ad up for the Merc in a bit of a toddler tantrum, but having looked around there is absolutely bugger all I'd actually want to buy under £10k, there were a few Saab 9-5's with the 2.3t engine which looked tasty, but they're in the £700/year tax bracket and are 16 years old. They're for sale at £3500 or so, and I just can't justify spending that much on a only-slightly-newer car, with double the tax. Its a bit grim, but I'm just better off using the money to keep this car going for another year or two. It has its foibles, but by and large its cheap and relatively easy to repair, and the things that aren't either cheap or easy (replace gearbox to try and fix issues selecting reverse) can be lived with/worked around in the meantime. Next on the list though is probably to have a serious look at the cam magnet thing which is leaking oil down the leading face of the engine block. Incidentally, changing to 10w40 has entirely silenced the startup noise from the cam chain so thats a result.

Re the cam magnet, did you get the new one from MB, or a factor? My W203 has had the wiring harness mod done, but weeps oil down the front of the engine and probably wants the cam magnet replacing as I suspect the seal has dried up/split/whatever. Did it come in a kit with a new o-ring & e-torx bolts out of interest?