Engineered like no other car. Not a single one like it. Thankfully.

[Stinkwheel]

What was the next move though, thats what we all want to know, edge of our chair and all that, better then soap operas these sort of long drawn out autoshite tension moments

[chaseracer]

59 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

What was the next move though, thats what we all want to know, edge of our chair and all that, better then soap operas these sort of long drawn out autoshite tension moments

I know what happened next.

Used notes in a brown paper bag, all right?  Usual place...

😁

[Matty]

2 hours ago, Stinkwheel said:

What was the next move though, thats what we all want to know, edge of our chair and all that, better then soap operas these sort of long drawn out autoshite tension moments

Usually though, while you're trying to leave a pregnant pause and ratchet up the tension, something else breaks 😆

[Lacquer Peel]

Would it be an awful job to get rid of the original fuel pipes and simplify the system?

[Talbot]

Follow up from what happened:

Where was I?  oh yes, sitting in a car with a shagged alternator, a majoritively flat battery and no breakdown cover in Telford services car park.  Not exactly ideal.

So.  Knowing that I have no breakdown cover to speak of, time to get creative.  Using google maps, call around every single motor factors and parts stores in the area trying to get hold of an alternator.  It's not a difficult one to change, and I likely have the tools with me to do it.  Or I can just buy them.. whatever gets me out of trouble.  I only need an E18 socket, a 13mm and 10mm spanner and a 6mm allen key.  Can't be that hard to find an alternator can it?  Yes, actually.  Most places could do me one for monday.  One place could do me one next day, but absolutely no-one can do me one today.  Even Mercedes (surprisingly) couldn't help me.  Fucksticks.

Next plan.  Pay the premium and join a breakdown service while needing their help.  OK, it's going to be expensive, but worth it.  Autoaid were every kind of useless on that front, but AA offered a service for a premium paid to join in a breakdown situation.  Worth it.  So paid the premium.  Bloke was out to me amazingly quickly but concluded very quickly that it was not a roadside repair, and hence it would need to be a recovery to local garage.  That's all well and good, but as he found after about 1/2hr of phone calls to local garages, no-one could do it as they couldn't get an alternator.  I already knew this, so suggested (as the person on the phone at AA had mentioned) that maybe we were looking at recovery home.

It's at that point I found out that by a lie of omission, the AA sales person had omitted to mention that recovery any further than to a local garage would be chargeable.. at FOUR POUNDS FIFTY ONE a mile.  Fuck me sideways with a cactus... how much????  Yes, for a recovery home, it's going to be somewhat north of EIGHT HUNDRED QUID.

That's clearly not happening.  I'm at a bit of a loss now as to what to do.  Thankfully, Ash (despite being a bit stressed with the situation, as we had dogs with us) suggested a hire car.  Of course, a frickin' hire car.  I was so focussed on getting the Merc home, it didn't even occur to me.  Quick google search, and there's an enterprise car hire 3 miles away.

"Enterprise car hire Telford"
"Hi.  What do you have that you can hire me *right now*"
"What class of car are you looking for?"
"Absolutely anything with 4 wheels that moves.  As long as it's available NOW!"
"We have a focus?"
"Available now?"
"Yes."
"Sold.  I'll be there in 5 minutes"

So, the very helpful and kind AA man lent me is jump pack to help get the car started again (it probably would have started, but he had it there, so makes sense to use it) and followed me the 3 miles to Enterprise.  Of course, the Merc went back on charge after about a mile,  but I knew it was short lived and would likely fail again within a few miles.

Got to Enterprise, and the AA bod was trying to encourage me to leave the Merc at a local garage for them to fix.  Not something I had any interest in doing, as not only would I end up with a bill for a very expensive alternator, and likely several hours of labour (despite it being a 20-minute change alternator) but the car is running about 80% veg at the moment, and I don't really want others dicking about with it.  So it got left in the Enterprise/general industrial estate car park, I get the keys to a 23-plate Focus estate, we move all the stuff that we needed to out of the Merc into the Focus, including 2 very well behaved dogs, a slightly-less-stressed housemate and all our luggage, point the nose of the Focus at West sussex and boot it.  We then spent the next 4 hrs of driving home being very glad of how quick and efficient Enterprise were and how handy it was they had a car available.

The hire car... was a Focus 1.0 3cyl ecoboost, with a horrible touchscreen for all it's car-functions, painful seats and seemingly sod-all power.  But at that point, none of that mattered, as it was transport home.  Got back about 3hrs later than expected, which is likely quicker than any recovery would have been.  I also found out that if you ask them to, Enterprise will deliver a car to you at no extra cost, so I could have even had it delivered to us at Telford Services.  I'm not sure I'm going to bother with breakdown insurance ever again, just make sure I know where the nearest car hire place is.. far faster!

[Talbot]

There's very few, if any photos of this entire event, as I was rather more focussed on resolving it rather than capturing it, but the story's not entirely over.

I'm now in the situation where I've a hire car on the driveway that needs to be back in Telford on Monday, and my car is up in their car park with a fairly flat battery and a dead alternator.  I likely now cannot get an alternator for monday, as I've missed the boat on ordering one in time.  Hmmmmmm.

Enter the W202 C250 Turbodiesel that I accidentally bought about 8 months ago.  It's got an OM605 in it, which is essentially identical to an OM606 but with one less cylinder.  That means I have an alternator just sat there (which I know works) and I can borrow to get the E300 home.  Soo-fucking-perb!

Saturday was spent moving the C250 back from my work car park home (after jump starting it from the Focus.  Very handy!) and getting the alternator out.  Which was absolutely bloody filthy, as it's had an oil leak all over it, and hence it was caked in about 10mm of oily mud.  Yeugh!

So.. On sunday, load up the hire car with the alterator (now cleaned up a bit), every spare car battery I have, all straight off charge, two sets of jump leads and the tools needed.  @chaseracer had very kindly offered me a bed for the night, as I hadn't realised how close Telford is to him.. barely 25 mins up the road it turns out.

I'd already found out that the branch of Enterprise in question don't offer a key-drop service, so I had to be there Monday morning to hand the hire car back.  But, I can likely get the Merc fixed on sunday evening.  So, up to chaceracer towers, grab a spare Dave, and then up to telford.  Dump the hire car back at Enterprise, shove a big battery on the floor of the Merc (battery is under the back seat) and see if it will start.  It does, but is not on charge.  No problem.  Back to chaceracer towers as fast as is sensible, as of course the quicker I go, the less time the battery needs to hold charge.  Was noticeable that with a big battery connected on jump leads, the volts were dropping a lot more slowly than they had been with just the Merc battery on, but it was still dropping quite a bit.  I think the electrical load from items you cannot switch off is fairly significant.  It did go onto charge a couple of times, but only for a minute or two, and then dropped off again.  It's reasonable to say that if I hadn't stopped at Telford, I doubt I would have made it very much further.

Out on the road outside Chaceracer's, and 20 minutes later I have the dead alternator out and the borrowed C250 one in.  Engine started and it's solidly on to charge at a nice healthy voltage.  Phew!

Next morning, drive back to Telford, Fuel up the Focus (as I'd forgotten to the night before) hand it back to Enterprise, and then barrel back to West Sussex in the Merc so I can get to work 3 hrs late.  All on charge and all working as well as it could do.  What a palaver!

Since then I've bought a new alternator, and plan to recondition the old one and carry it as a spare.  I realised on one of my many journeys that over the years I have had more breakdowns due to failed alternators (4) than I have absolutely flat/wrecked tyres and hence needed a spare (3).  So it would actually be more prudent to carry an alternator than a spare tyre.  Actually, I'll carry both.

The C250 has it's original alternator back, and I've treated the E300 to a new (and significantly larger) battery.  The "correct" one for the car was about £120 and is a 100AH unit.  Instead, I bought a £75 130AH deep-cycle leisure battery.  It's the same footprint, and has plenty of CCAs to start the car.  In fact it starts better and charges better now than it has done in my ownership of 70k miles.  £190 (£115 alt and £75 battery) well spent.

[Talbot]

4 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Would it be an awful job to get rid of the original fuel pipes and simplify the system?

It would not be easy.  The fuel system is entirely designed around O-ring fittings, meaning nothing has hose barbs on it.  I suppose you could remove things and tap them for a thred, to then fit hose tails everywhere, but it's a lot easier just to order some new viton O-rings from a bearing supplier and just change them.  I probably won't ever have to change them again, so it's a one-off job.  There's about two-dozen O-rings overall, and I've changed something like 18 of them now.  That's going to be the next installment.

[drewd]

I've a W203 with the OM612 engine that suddenly became difficult to start a few weeks back. I've had the car for around 11 months now and aside from the electric heater booster going open circuit and draining the battery repeatedly it'd always started really easily until then.

This is my first Mercedes so I'm still learning about them, but read that the o rings are the most common problem of non starting diesels as they fail as you mentioned and allow air into the system. I also read that the plastic fuel lines get brittle with age.

I ordered some o rings from a Mercedes dealer but each fuel line I'd touched (fuel filter to low pressure pump, low pressure pump to high pressure pump) broke as soon as I touched it. The Voss fittings on the lines broke under the pressure of me trying to release them. I've ordered the replacement lines plus one from the high pressure pump to the fuel rail. They arrived this week so I'm planning on fitting them this weekend.

I'm sure you're much more knowledgeable and experienced with these things than I am, but just thought I'd mention the fragile lines on the off chance you're planning on swapping o rings on them.

[Richard_FM]

4 hours ago, drewd said:

I've a W203 with the OM612 engine that suddenly became difficult to start a few weeks back. I've had the car for around 11 months now and aside from the electric heater booster going open circuit and draining the battery repeatedly it'd always started really easily until then.

This is my first Mercedes so I'm still learning about them, but read that the o rings are the most common problem of non starting diesels as they fail as you mentioned and allow air into the system. I also read that the plastic fuel lines get brittle with age.

I ordered some o rings from a Mercedes dealer but each fuel line I'd touched (fuel filter to low pressure pump, low pressure pump to high pressure pump) broke as soon as I touched it. The Voss fittings on the lines broke under the pressure of me trying to release them. I've ordered the replacement lines plus one from the high pressure pump to the fuel rail. They arrived this week so I'm planning on fitting them this weekend.

I'm sure you're much more knowledgeable and experienced with these things than I am, but just thought I'd mention the fragile lines on the off chance you're planning on swapping o rings on them.

Did the designer of the lines also supervise the building of their new paint shop in the 1990s,  where the bacteria levels in the pipes caused a lot of cars to rust like a 1970s Fiat!?

[jonathan_dyane]

I keep thinking I should really buy a spare new regulator/brush box assembly to pop in the glovebox of the 406 for if/when I suffer this; hopefully this will encourage me to actually buy one...

[Talbot]

On 18/11/2023 at 08:09, drewd said:

thought I'd mention the fragile lines on the off chance you're planning on swapping o rings on them.

I appreciate the warning, however the OM612 that you have is about three generations newer than the OM606 in this car.  Consequently, despite being plastic lines on mine, they are really very robust.  I've already changed many sets of O-Rings on these and although you can't be rough with them, they're surprisingly robust for over 25 years old.

On 18/11/2023 at 21:08, jonathan_dyane said:

I keep thinking I should really buy a spare new regulator/brush box assembly to pop in the glovebox of the 406 for if/when I suffer this; hopefully this will encourage me to actually buy one...

Do it now.  Not next week, not even tomorrow.  Order one now and don't break down like I did! (or at least be able to get yourself out of a breakdown situation)

[jonathan_dyane]

On 21/11/2023 at 09:43, Talbot said:

Do it now.  Not next week, not even tomorrow.  Order one now and don't break down like I did! (or at least be able to get yourself out of a breakdown situation)

 

[Talbot]

Sensible.

I still need to refurbish my old alternator.  Turns out you can get replacement slip-rings for them too, which is essential, as they look like the grand canyon at the moment...

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, jonathan_dyane said:

 

I'd fit it now or at least check the old brushes. Once they wear and the inner metal bits contact the comm it then causes damage. 

Experience through seeing it on hundreds of vacuum motors, same probably applies here too to a lesser degree. 

Even if their fine and you put the old one back after cleaning it up you then know how to do it when on the hard shoulder somewhere. Align any clips or fasteners to be perfectly accessible from the engine bay whilst in a mild panic etc, you'll thank yourself later! 

(is this something I should think about for mine? It might be 29 years old now... 🤔) 

[Talbot]

1 minute ago, beko1987 said:

(is this something I should think about for mine? It might be 29 years old now... 🤔) 

I'm sure you mean 21 don't you?

[beko1987]

Just now, Talbot said:

I'm sure you mean 21 don't you?

Yes. I even auto corrected it once... 🤣