Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - New Battery Day 25/10

[Tadhg Tiogar]

44 minutes ago, Stanky said:

.....A person with a double-digit IQ would have worn a mask, I held my breath as much as I could and ended up with brown bogeys for about 3 days...

....Again, my 'hold your breath and spray 'til you go blue' method of PPE failed hard and I had black bogeys for 3 days.......

I dread to think what other colours your "bogeys" have been in the past.....

[spike60]

As well as the length Mercedes wheels use 2 different  bolt seats, tapered and a kinda ball affair.  Your pic of the three bolts shows this well but I have no idea which wheels and bolts go together. Wheels with the same size and offset etc can also have different bolt sizes as well (14mm and 12mm thread) as I found out , - anyone want any free SLK wheels that don;t fit E class....?    Sorry if you already know this, I found out the hard way!   

[Stanky]

Some more work undertaken today, the mercedes received a gearbox oil change, probably for the first time in its history.

Getting the car up in the air was a piece of cake with the new lift, the only small fly in the ointment was that while the lift pads easily clear the sills when its fully 'down' it is still about 2cm too high to clear the catalytic converter, so you have to slide the lift in halfway, jack the front of the car up a bit then slide it all the way across. however once in and lifted access is really good.

I undid both undertrays to get at the gearbox which feels like its a long way back - it must be about level with the front seats at a guess? Anyway, I had to have a furkle about to find the fill plug. With gearboxes I was always told that you MUST undo the fill plug first, because if you undo the drain plug then discover the fill plug isn't coming out you're stuffed with a gearbox empty of oil with no means to refill it. The fill plug came undone with a 18" bar with a 14mm hex drive on the end with minimal fuss, the drain plug on the other hand was no at all keen to release its death-grip. it takes a 17mm hex drive bit and with as much heaving and grunting as I could muster with the 18" bar it wasn't letting go. Luckily I had my clarke impact gun to hand which rattled it out with ease, I think it had just seized itself into place over the last 20 years as the threads were quite clean once it came out.

The contents of the gearbox were stinky and very black, suggesting it was old, if not original.

The drain plug has a magnet in it and the outlook wasn't that great

Lots of shiny bits is rarely a good sign, but they were all small slivers so maybe sort of ok? A seeing to with my trusty inspection magnet and some carb cleaner and a rag had it looking better

Next job was to work out how much gearbox oil had been removed. The received wisdom is that these were filled with 1.8 litres from the factory, subsequently it was discovered that the gearshift was a bit shit and Mercedes best solution was that on refill, just add 300ml less oil. So, step one, assemble some professionally calibrated measuring devices

the cream soda bottle is 1 litre, the fizzy water bottle and sprite bottle are 500ml each. I used an old funnel to direct the contents of the washing up bowl into the bottles

I make that about 1750ml. The cream soda and sprite bottles are full, and the fizzy water bottle is about half full. there will have been some left in the gearbox and my measurements will be slightly off but thats all I needed to know. I had bought 2 bottles of Redline MTL gear oil from ebay, because its american it came in 946ml (1 quart) bottles

I used a bit of clean hose with the funnel from earlier, slid down the side of the cylinderhead and into the fill hole. I had replaced the drain plug by this point, making sure to use a dab of gear oil on the threads and not tighten it up too much. This worked pretty well

I poured all of one bottle in slowly, checking to make sure the hose hadn't fallen out of the fill hole and it wasn't pissing expensive oil all over my garage floor. Mercifully it was fine. The next step was to use a syringe and some thin hose to remove 550ml from the other (full) bottle of MTL

I have some big 60ml syringes so just drew off 11 lots of 50ml and put it into the empty bottle that I'd used first, then added this slowly to the funnel arrangement. Accounting for oil left stuck to the inside of the bottle I make this about 1500ml, probably more like 1550ml including the remaining contents of the gearbox.

I did the fill plus back up, having whipped the hose and funnel out the top, wipes it all down with a rag as best I could, refitted the undertrays, lowered the car back down, jacked it back up so I could side the lift out under the cat, withdrew the lift, lowered it back off the jack, shut the bonnet and then started it up. No horrible noises, no puddle of gear oil.

I took it out for a run around. 2nd has always been a bit iffy, crunching if you try and rush it from cold. With the new gear oil it was better, but still not to be rushed. Since the car is by no means a ball of fire, this isn't too much of a problem - its certainly better, especially once the gearbox oil has warmed up, but its not transformed the car. Still, its one more life-extending job on the old girl. If this oil lasts another 112k miles and 20 years I'll be happy. The Redline MTL seems to be recommended by a lot of MB forum bods - who all seem to be in the USA - along with Royal Purple which was quite a bit more expensive. I think the total cost of this was under £20 which isn't bad.

The job was actually quite a bit harder on a RWD car than a FWD one as the gearbox is so far back, but once I'd banished mental images of the lift collapsing and crushing me to death under 1500kg of mercedes it was actually fine.

[Stanky]

Some more fixertaing for tonight, bangernomics fans*

As commented elsewhere, there is a bit of a vibration when you hit the brakes above 50mph, pottering about its fine but a bit of a chore on the motorway. Since I'm due to put about 400 miles on the odometer next weekend I probably ought to do something about it. I'd asked for opinions on ECP & GSF brakes with the general opinion that most of them were crap and OEM from mercedes was the best option. I had decided that as the tyres had been recently changed and balanced, the most likely cuprit was warped front discs.

The best the factors could do on a pair of front discs and pads (since i might as well change them while I'm in there) was about £170, mercedes wanted £140 for discs and pads, but ebay came up trumps with the best* of both worlds. A pair of Febi Bilstein discs and pads for £80 delivered. I ordered them and they showed up today

This seemed the best compromise between brand I'd heard of and price. Lets see if I live to regret it because apparently this generation of c-classes has a bit of a thing* about brake discs.

Having put the kids to bed and got about 1/3rd of the way through a bottle of cheap tempranillo I set to with the car in the garage. Hubcaps off

Wheel nuts loosened and up on the lift, wheels off completely and lets see what we have

The caliper was removed from the carrier with 2x 12mm hex nuts and lifted on top of the disc. I removed the old pads which were Pagid ones and actually had loads of meat left on them

Old ones top, new ones bottom. I find Pagid pads are good and last well but do make quite a bit of brake dust compareds with ATE blueprints. they are cheaper though so there.

I undid the torx nut that holds the disc to the hub by jamming a blade screwdriver between disc rim and caliper carrier to stop it turning and I applied force, then undid the caliper carrier which has 2x 18mm (I think, my 19mm socket seemed a bit loose on it?) bolts holding it to the hub.

Then removed the disc

These have a slight lip on them and no obvious marks for what brand they are. They seem in good condition with even wear on both sides but the annoying vibration i suspect they have warped slightly. Anyway, new disc cleaned with some triple QX brake and clutch cleaner and an old, but clean rag and fitted up to the hub with the old retaining bolt with a tiny smear of copper grease to hold it in place

then with the carrier off the car I gave it a good scrubbing with my wire brush to get the encrusted brake dust off the important bits

Refitted the pad retaining clip thingies and next up was to pull out, clean and re-grease the sliders. They came out of the boots fine and were in pretty good condition overall

A wipe with a rag to get the old grease off, then a finger dab of silicone grease to lube them up, and refitted to the caliper carrier to the hub around the new disc. You can't get the discs out/in without removing the carrier, or at least i couldn't.

Next up was to use a G-clamp to push the brake piston back into the caliper body. I undid the brake fluid reservoir cap at the top and then wound in the piston with the g-clamp

These calipers are perfect for home DIY, a medium sized clamp fited easily and the happily retracted fully into the bore of the caliper with minimum effort. This was a breath of fresh air after the Daewoo debacle. With the piston fully retracted I fitted the pad clips and pads to the carriers

Then eased the caliper back into position over the top, doing up the 2x 12mm nuts that hold the caliper to the carrier, after putting a small amount of copper grease on the backs of the pads to hopefully stop them shrieking in use.

The disc had got a bit grubby from my furkling around so I sprayed it off with a bit more brake cleaner before refitting the wheel on this side and then moving to the other side and repeating the process. All went well, and I didn't seem to break anything or have any bits left over. with wheels back on I made sure I had refitted the cap to the brake fluid reservoir before starting it up and pumping the brake pedal to take up the slack before putting into gear. A high* speed run backwards up the shared drive whilst somewhat inebriated revealed the brakes to be working fine so I'm declaring this a moderate success for the time being. I'll take it on a run on the not-50mph bit of the M27 tomorrow to see if the vibration has gone.

 

[Stanky]

MOT day for the Daewoo today, I fixed* all the advisories from the last test excep the rear brake backing plate and the worn bushes so lets see what happens this time around...

[Stanky]

Mot passed with a handful of advisories for surface rust on suspension and worn top mounts - I quizzed the tester and he said it wasn't worth bothering with for at least another year. 

They were quite complimentary about it, but wouldn't let me swap it for the immaculate y reg MK3 Capri that was in for a test at the same time, boooo!

So, another year of motoring In the Daewoo awaits!

[Stanky]

After evicting a trapped stone betwixt rear brake disc and backing plate, and scraped the remains of a melted plastic bag off the catalytic converter the other day, I had ordered some differential oil from ebay. It duly turned up today so I got the mercedes back up on the tilting lift thing (which is absolutely the best thing I have ever bought ever) and raised its bum into the air.

I have a 14mm hex key with a 1/2" socket attachment so rather than reaching straight for the ugga-dugga thought I'd try and see if I could convince the fill plug to release its grip using a 2' bar and my MIGHTY STRENGTH. I was not disappointed, as the fill plug, then drain plugs submitted to my might and came out without any fuss. As with the gearbox, its worth making absolutely sure the fill plug comes out first - because if you remove the drain plug, drain the contents then discover the filler plug isn't coming out then you're buggered.

anyway, I left it to drain into a washing up bowl and cleaned up the two plugs with brake cleaner and a clean old rag. Internet wisdom reckons the diff takes a bit over 1l of oil but I reasoned that since I'd not get all the contents out, and it being up in the air on the lift rather than flat meant I'd get away with just buying 1 litre of oil. I opted for Fuchs Sintopoid 75w/85 which was recommended as being the right spec for it. The fill procedure is a bit of a faff, as the diff is boxed in by the driveshafts, exhaust and boot floor meaning the only way I could get the new oil in (after refitting the drain plug) was to syringe it in with one of my 60ml syringes and some thin silicone hose. 17 syringe-fulls later and the oil started dribbling back out the fill hole so I refitted the fill plug and declared it a job well done. 

I tightened the fill and drain plugs up tight-ish and then tried to wipe as much of the spilt oil off the exhaust as I could with an old rag. I decanted the oil I had removed into an old squash bottle and there was about 1 litre in total, according to the level thing on the side of the new oil bottle I was able to put 900ml back in, so I reckon there is probably a litre total in there now. due to the positioning of the filler plug and the fact I only had the back end of the car up in the air and front wheels on the ground meant it could probably have a tiny bit more squeezed in if it was on a proper level 4 poster but 100ml can't make a huge difference?

The stuff that came out was likely original and 20 years and 113k miles old. It was black and stinky, the new stuff is lovely and straw coloured. 

I took the car for a run after I had cleared up and it seemed smoother so I'll call that a job well done. 

Incidentally, why does gearbox oil and diff oil go black with age/mileage? I get that engine oil is exposed to carbon from combustion and absorbs soot, but in a totally sealed unit like a diff or gearbox, why does it go black?

So thats all the fluids now replaced in my ownership, its a good car overall and other than increasingly severe lacquer peel on the bonnet and roof its actually quite decent. Its also a very capable load lugger too, anything that won't fit in the back will happily go on the factory roof bars so its a useful contraption as well. I'd quite like to try one of the bigger engined ones as the only slight disappointment is a lack of power from the 2.0 M111 engine, its adequate, but feels like the chassis could happily cope with double the power output. I bet the C32 AMG ones are a riot with 350bhp on tap.

[Twiggy]

Thank you for posting - they were fascinating !

[Stanky]

future of the mercedes was on a knife-edge this morning. I got in to drive to work and the display flashed up a MALFUNCTION code. rear number plate light out.

ERRR NERR! 

A furkle around in the glovebox at the work carpark turned up a spare in one of my mega useful Lidl £5 bulb kits. 5 mins with the screwdriver later and illumination has been restored. Its due an MOT in a month or so and has developed a clonky noise over rough road surfaces from the rear drivers side, not sure what that is but I'm sure the MOT people will pick it up. Other than that there is nothing wrong with it, it carries on doing a sterling job.

I'm going to try and replace the tiny spring in the passenger side front door lock at the weekend, a job which every guide describes as being a total PITA, so the car could well be on fire by Sunday afternoon. The hope is that it will stop it doing the central locking dance when i use the remote fob to lock/unlock it.

[Stanky]

HALP! HALP! HALP!

I set to with the 'kit' to change the spring in the lock actuator on the mercedes earlier (5 hours ago...) and its all gone fucking wrong. It took me about 2 hours (with youtube guide) to get the actuator out, spring was indeed snapped and I replaced it. I put everything back together and now I have two problems.

Problem one - when I reassemble the door everything is fine, right up until I hook the interior door handle to the hook on the end of the bowden cable that goes inside the door to the actuator/latch. with this unattached, the door opens and closes fine, I can move the lock button up and down easily. everything works exactly as it shoud. HOWEVER. 

When I hook the end of the bowden cable to the inside door handle on the door card, it puts too much tension on the cable, meaning the door will not lock or unlock - it thinks that you are essentially holding the interior door handle open.

The lock pin will not go up or down, and the door will not latch.

Remove the door card and it is absolutely fine again. The bowden cable can't route any other way, but the fucking thing just will not work. What am I missing? What have I done? without tension, its fine, when tensioned, its too tight. I noticed that when tensioned, you only need to pull the interior door handle about 5mm for the latch to release, barely touching it.

Issue two is that now when you start the car, it comes up with an ESP warning - any suggestions? I had to carefully (with battery disconnected) remove and unplug the side airbag a couple of times while I was removing and refitting the door lock, but its plugged back in now - this was all done with battery disconnected.

Edit - ESP was not serious. when you disconnect the battery the car goes crazy because it doesn't know what the limits of steering lock are. Going lock to lock then centring the steering wheel makes that go away. 

Also, anyone who has done this job before, how the dickens do I refit the airbag unit? I had to drill out the three rivets that hold it on, that was no problem, the kit came with replacement nuts and bolts, but the top two holes go into box section - I can;t get to the back of where the bolt goes to put the nut on it? From what I can see, rivets won't work either as if I feed them into the hole they'll just pull out when I try to fix them with the gun?

very much one of those jobs where I wish I hadn't started. 

Help me Obi-Wan McShitey, you lot are my only hope!

[Stanky]

OK, I think what I might have been doing wrong is routing the bowden cable below the airbag, rather than above it, this makes the cable run too long by about 2cm and overtightens it.

Tomorrow morning I'll have another crack at re-routing the cable over the top of the airbag unit instead of underneath and will get photos to better illustrate the issue.

 

[Stanky]

Done at last, what a hideous job that was! Turns out (as usual) I was doing it wrong last night, the door latch cable should indeed route ABOVE the airbag, not below it. It will physically fit below, and the angle that it comes out the door frame makes it look like thats how it should go, but doing so adds about 2cm more travel, over-tightening the cable slightly and preventing the lock from working at all, and making it very difficult to get it to latch shut.

with the door card off for the 873rd time I re-routed the cable, put it all back together, took it apart again to fish out the tweeter that had become trapped behind the door card, re-fitted it and everything works as it should. 

I am 99% certain that while DaimlerChrysler were slated for costcutting mercedes in the early 00s, no-one gives any credit to the highly trained octopus that assembled the doors on W203 c-classes, because to be honest, reassembly by an actual human is virtually impossible. All of this entertainment* for the sake of a miniscule spring that flips the lock pin between 'up' and 'down'. Slow clap Mercedes, slow clap...

If anyone else gets a similar age mercedes and the door lock does a dance when locking or unlocking. Just leave it. Seriously. The only way to describe this job is 'vile'. 

I broke at least 4 clips on the doorcard and smashed a chunk out the speaker grille too, so what I really need now is a new doorcard for the passenger side of a c180, but thats not going to happen any time soon because I'm just too traumatised by the whole thing. I have no problem with things that are complex because they do complex jobs, but this is just complexity for complexity' sake. 

All 4 doors do now operate as expected on the button, other than the stepper motor on the heater blower being broken (this will not be fixed, at least not in my ownership) now everything works as it should. For now. 

No pictures as to begin with I was watching youtube tutorial on my phone, and after about 2 hours my hands where so shredded from sharp metal edges in the door fame and broken plastic clips I couldn't have operated the phone anyway.

I'm off to rub savlon into the tattered remains of my hands

 

[The Moog]

That sounds like a right war....

I know that feeling when you are 50% through the job and it feels hopeless. Glad you got there in the end though!

[Stanky]

Are there any knowledgeable mercedes bods on here who might be able to guide/dissuade me on supercharging?

I believe my W203 is blessed with an M111.951 engine, a 1998cc 4-cylinder 16v engine putting out 130bhp (once upon a time). I am also given to understand that there is/was a variant, the M111.955 engine which had a supercharger attached, giving an additional 30bhp. This sounds quite exciting, especially as there is a supercharger & inlet manifold on ebay for £120 RITE NAO.

Mine is the C180, I believe the supercharger-equipped version of mine is badged C200 or C200k.

What else might I require to convert my NA engine to a supercharged version? Is it a case of buying the charger, inlet manifold and some gaskets and then swapping bits over, or is it more complicated than that? Yes I'm aware its cheaper/easier to just buy a bigger engined or better specified car to begin with but it might be interesting to do and document.

 

[holbeck]

I can't help,  but by God I admire your ambition!

[Talbot]

2 hours ago, Stanky said:

What else might I require to convert my NA engine to a supercharged version?

A replacement engine.  The Compression ratio is different between supercharged and N/A engines.  If you superdupercharge a N/A engine you'll end up with over-pressure and a bOrked everything.

Plus it needs the different ECU, likely has piston cooling oil jets, stronger rods, different pistons (possibly stronger, possibly just for the different CR) and may also have detail differences like a different camshaft profile and maybe something odd like sodium filled exhaust valves.

Also, I believe the 200 Kompressor engine is a 2.0  I don't think the 1.8 had a kompressor attached to it.

Verdict:  Just don't.

[doobietoo]

3 hours ago, Stanky said:

Are there any knowledgeable mercedes bods on here who might be able to guide/dissuade me on supercharging?

I believe my W203 is blessed with an M111.951 engine, a 1998cc 4-cylinder 16v engine putting out 130bhp (once upon a time). I am also given to understand that there is/was a variant, the M111.955 engine which had a supercharger attached, giving an additional 30bhp. This sounds quite exciting, especially as there is a supercharger & inlet manifold on ebay for £120 RITE NAO.

Mine is the C180, I believe the supercharger-equipped version of mine is badged C200 or C200k.

What else might I require to convert my NA engine to a supercharged version? Is it a case of buying the charger, inlet manifold and some gaskets and then swapping bits over, or is it more complicated than that? Yes I'm aware its cheaper/easier to just buy a bigger engined or better specified car to begin with but it might be interesting to do and document.

 

Not a Merc bod, but In addition you would need bottom pulley and belt to run the supercharger,  probably exhaust manifold, possibly matching ECU and injectors. While Merc probably upgraded other things for their own piece of mind warranty claims if you are not racing it constantly driving it enthusiastically it is likely to be fine.

Having said that it would be far easier and cheaper to buy a complete MOT failure kompressor car and swap the engine and all the other upgraded bits over and then sell what is left.

[Stanky]

Thanks chaps, I'll file this with my other good* ideas!

Incidentally, some while back I put some seafoam in the tank and squirted it neat down the throttle body, at the time I grumbled that it hadn't made much difference.

I take that back now, it took a while to work but the car idles more smoothly now and seems happier to rev as well. The mpg is a bit better too.

[Stanky]

Can anyone help me?

Recently there has been a squealing noise from the rear of the mercedes at low speed, like <10mph slow. Above that it either goes away or is inaudible over the engine/road noise etc. engine speed makes no difference to the squeal. Its quite quiet, but noticeable with the radio off. This is a fairly recent development.

Earlier this afternoon I put it on the lift and raised the back end into the air to see what I could see. I had both wheels off and rotating by hand didn't throw up any squealing, only the usual swishing noise of the pads on the discs. There is plenty of meat on all 4 rear pads and they make good contact with the disc. There is barely any lip on the rear discs at all.

So I had a brainwave. As its RWD and the rear end if off the ground, I can start it up, put it in gear and see if I can replicate the noise. Easy. Into 1st, no noise, got out and checked the hubs were turning which they were. OK, lets try 2nd. Into gear, then easing the clutch up and there was a horrible grinding noise from the rear passenger side. I tried raising the revs a little (to about 1200rpm) and the noise was horrible, rumbly, grindy noise. I got out to see what was going on and the hubs were rotating at different speeds, slightly snagging one side then the other, and thats what the noise was. Shortly after, the drag on the discs was too much and the engine stalled. I took it out of gear then rotated the hubs by hand and there was no noise.

I fired the car up again, at idle in 1st there was no noise, as soon as I applied a small amount of revs or put it into 2nd gear, grinding and rumbling came back. I also noticed that below the rear passenger side hub, a small but noticable amount of black sooty dust was building up.

Fearing I'd megab0rked it, I put the wheels back on, but with rear end still on the lift and tried again - same behaviour. Above idle in 1st or idle or above in 2nd and it make horrible noises. FFS.

So I lowered it down, and withdrew the lift then thought I'd try taking it for a short, low-speed drive along my residential street. 

No Noise?

Ok, lets go a bit further, got up to about 40mph and 4th gear, no horrible noises at all. SO with the weight of the car on the wheels/hubs it seems fine, with the weight off it makes nasty noises.

Is this normal? I wondered if by having it up in the air, the wear in the rear pads somehow makes them mis-aligned with the disc and the noise is the pad rubbing in an unusual way on the disc? I didn't have time to take the rear brakes apart but everything looks OK from my inspection with the wheel off and rear end raised? Incidentally, on my short test drive, there was no squealing any more, at any speed.

 

[Asimo]

Driveshafts seem to make a lot of noise when the suspension is hanging like this. 

[Stanky]

As mentioned on the N24 thread, the mercedes got a clean pass today. The testers even went so far as to compliment the car on how clean and well cared for it was, as most W203s they see are worn out rustbuckets apparently. 

I also finally sorted out the missing flap things that cover the mirrors in the sun visors - how these ended up being removed and then lost is a complete mystery. Anyway fixed now with some pattern replacements.

The snagging list of things is now very short. The only known broken thing is the heater blower stepper motor which makes a deranged clicking noise for 30 seconds every time the car is started. Looking that job up I will need to remove most of the dashboard and also the front wiper linkage to get at the broken bit so thats being left for now, possibly forever. It still works, but the button to direct air to different places doesn't work. Also the AC doesn't work but 95% of the time I don't even think about that.

I might look at getting a new passenger front door card maybe as I wrecked the original trying to sort the door lock spring.

Otherwise its a case of just enjoying it I think.

EDIT TO ADD - I asked the MOT guys about the squealy noise and they weren't sure, they suggested diff, which I said I'd changed the oil on recently and that I didn't think it was that, as it'd make squealy noises even with the car in neutral while rolling along - to me this says its not diff because at idle in neutral the propshaft should not be rotating, correct? The car also makes the noise whether brakes are being applied or not, which to me rules out screechy brake pad backing plates too. Their only other suggestion was potentially a wheel bearing but that this 100% did not show up as being of any concern in the test today so we're all a little bit mystified. They did say that if I could take it for a run and get it to start making the noise then to swing by their garage and one of them would jump in and see if they could isolate it. It only happens after a motorway run and is only audible under about 15mph.

[GeorgeB]

6 hours ago, Stanky said:

with the car in neutral while rolling along - to me this says its not diff because at idle in neutral the propshaft should not be rotating, correct?

With the car in neutral and rolling along the diff and prop shaft will definitely be turning. Think about it!

[Stanky]

17 minutes ago, GeorgeB said:

With the car in neutral and rolling along the diff and prop shaft will definitely be turning. Think about it!

haha you are absolutely right! *slaps forehead*

Right, lets see if we can't squeeze some more oil into the diff in that case.

[Talbot]

Rather than a wheel bearing, it could possibly be a diff side-bearing.  Have you tried grabbing hold of the driveshaft where it exits the diff and heaving up and down?

If it is a diff bearing, fear not.  W203 diffs are comparatively very easy to change and fairly inexpensive as they usually never go wrong, hence there is no premium for them.

[Stanky]

Having gone nowhere for the last 10 days there has been no progress on the diff noise front, I'll look at it at some point soon, maybe when its a bit warmer. 

However - fear not, fans of boring car updates - I did something today and took pictures.

The daewoo has factory alloy wheels which are quite grotty with brake dust.  I usually clear the outer face of them with a soft broom when I'm cleaning the car, but the sides of the 'spokes' and the inside are pretty grim. I recently finished the last bit of my purple 'bleeding' wheel cleaner which was OK, but not that good on really baked-on grime so decided to spend a bit more cash on some AutoSmart wheel cleaner instead. I got a 5l bottle of 'Ali Shine' cleaner from @Wingz123 the other week and set to with it on one of the front wheels of the Daewoo today. Its a bit different to the bleeding cleaners because its acidic, and doesn't change colour in the presence of our lord jesus christ iron oxide.

I decanted about 300ml into a squirty bottle I got from Aldi for 79p the other week and topped it up roughly half and half with water. The bottle reckons for 'normal' use to dilute it 4:1 but to use it stronger on stubborn muck, which this is.

The wheel looked like this to begin with

Very baked-on grot which no other cleaner would shift. To begin with I wetted it with the hose and squirted a good dose of cleaner onto the wet metal.

I left it for ~30 seconds and then used an old 2" paintbrush to agitate the muck and cleaner solution. it almost instantly looked a lot better

I flipped the wheel over and did the front face, especially the wheel bolt holes and the difficult to reach crevices of where the spokes meet the outer rim of the wheel

Again, brushing in with a soft bristle brush. Next I sprayed it off with the hose inside and out, before giving the inside another spray with wheel cleaner solution and attacking it with an old toothbrush. The job would be an awful lot easier with a washing up brush or something - I only had a broom, a paintbrush and a toothbrush...

After a scrub all round with the toothbrush, in the crevices, wheel bolt holes and the inside of the wheel I hosed it all off again and HEY PRESTO!

Not perfect, but a damn sight better than it was! I made sure I hosed it all off really well, being as the cleaner was acidic, but its come up really really well. There is some corrosion on the inside of the spokes which makes it hard to get the baked on brake dust off as the surface is quite pitted. and some of the bits - like where the spokes join the hub - were hard to get at with the toothbrush but overall its not half bad.

I was washing the paintbrush off periodicially in a mop bucket which shows just how much foulery came off

I'm pretty pleased with that for 20 minutes work in the rain today. Wheel put back on and 3 to go. The front ones are way worse than the back wheels so hopefully the two back wheels will be easier to clean up. 

This is the stuff I got:

5L of it will go a long way! Firmly recommend it though, I was buying 500ml of bleeding cleaner for about £15 a time, this was about £40 for 5L and diluted will be more like 15L of cleaner. The only thing I could do with really is some wheel sealer to try and slow the return of the brake dust buildup a bit.

[spartacus]

What a great read. I'm not usually a fan of those Mercs but yours looks good in red.

[Stanky]

Its getting there, I cunningly don't photograph the bits where the lacquer is sloughing off in great chunks or the rust bubbles are erupting in weird places like the middle of door panels, but yeah its a practical and capable old hector

[Stanky]

minor update for today, quietening down the whining in the back.

I'd had a whiny noise at slow speeds after a run (e.g. coming off a motorway onto minor roads, slowing down below ~15mph) which I'd sort of traced to the differential after ruling out everything else. I'd changed the diff oil a while ago and the noise only started after the oil had been changed. Since I got more out than I was able to put back in, I surmised it was probably that.

Put it up on the lift and tried to syringe more oil in, but it flowed out as fast as it was going in. its not helped by the fact that the fill plug is on the front of the diff, so with the back of the car jacked up it was higher at the fill plug end than at the rear. A flash of dangerous inspiration was to remove the lift, jack the passenger side up as much as I could, put some stout bits of 4" x 8" wood under the tyre to tip the car over towards the drivers side and then try filling that way.

This worked really well, As the fill plug is on the passenger side of the diff, tipping it the other way allows you to get more oil in. I syringed another 220-ish ML of a mix of diff oil and leftover gearbox oil in like this before it started running back out again. Also the car didn't fall off the wooden block and squash me (you'll all no doubt be pleased to hear).

Took it for a run and full service has resumed. Was out for about 40 minutes, covering 20 ish miles including buzzing along the M27 in 4th and its silent once more. Result happiness, the diff is quiet, there are no other untoward noises and its generally a nice place to be.

[Stanky]

With the Mercedes all sorted, the Daewoo decided it wanted some attention, I replaced one of the front calipers last winter after it began binding and the the piston jammed in the bore trying to remove and clean it. unsurprisingly the other side (passenger side) one has now started to bind as well.

I had been out and about locally on errands and noticed that after a bit of a run, it wasn't pulling itself along in D properly - with foot off the accelerator it usually pulls itself along at about 3mph, but was just sitting not moving. It'd go fine with some accelerator but this flagged that all might not be well. Once I got home I felt each wheel in turn, and the metal of the front passenger side wheel was warm (but not hot) to the touch, much moreso than the other three.

I'm not fucking about trying to rebuild the caliper, I've gone straight to ebay and got a refurbished one for £35 delivered. ECP wanted about £130 even with discount code (there is a £48 exchange fee in there TBH) which nearly swung it for an attempted rebuild, but having cross referenced the part number from the surprisingly helpful (not to mention cheap?) https://www.onlinecarparts.co.uk/ - ebay same up trumps.

I was slightly puzzled that there seems to be three OEM part numbers for the same thing? 96250029, 96549788 & 96418871. Is this normal? They did switch from being branded 'Daewoo' to 'Chevrolet' after about 2 years of production so that might explain it a bit? Anyway, hopefully it fits (the part looks identical and has the same DAC-12 code stamped on it (L in this case, R on the other side) as the one I did this time last year.

Does anyone know whether any companies pay for b0rked calipers up front? i.e. not on an ECP exchange surcharge basis, just buying buggered ones to refurb? Or is it metals bin time for the old one?

[Stanky]

The caliper arrived in the post today and was the right part, I made dinner for the family then went out and swapped it over in the garage. The old one came off without a drama,  the sliders still slid fine and the new one went on fine. I undid the bleed nipple and put a miniscule amount of copper grease on the threads to hopefully stop it seizing in.

I recycled the pads as there is nothing wrong with them, and the discs seem fine too. I gave the whole ensemble a clean off with brake cleaner when I was done.

Got #1 daughter to do the pedals end while I bled the air out of the caliper (mostly all over the floor) then topped up the reservoir with new dot4.

Behold a new caliper on an old carrier, disc and pads

I took up the slack in the piston and then went for a short drive and it seems fine, for £35 I'll take that.