Jump to content

1963 Mercedes Benz 190DC Fintail. New charging system.


Dyslexic Viking

Recommended Posts

After 5 hours, the tow truck arrived and the car was transported to their locked parking lot. And I was dropped off at a hotel. This has become one of the most frustrating days of my life and I have lost all want to drive cars on long trips now.

After thinking about it, I suspect that the Mercedes has a fuel problem. And the plan is to have it transported home.

20220812_231848.thumb.jpg.38de47d9f5fe34060582b71dabd391ea.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hold tight.  I remember the first car I bought that was 38 years old (I was 20)  which was then put straight to use going from Bristol to Cornwall  the next day. It was wonderfull till 15 miles from her parents it err broken down.. in roadworks.. late at night.  I had my very first mobile phone and duly called the number and a tow truck turned up within 10 minutes at 10.30 at night.  He duly towed me to the end of the roadworks and deposited me in a layby at 11pm when I made a very pleasing call to my GF  to ask... very, very nicely if her dad wouldnt mind  coming 12 miles in his Disco to give me a tow... please.  She was already utterly thrilled I was already 2 hours late.

 

Anyway he duly turned up half an hour later and  I was towed back to her parent s house.  Next day  cursory investigations revealed I'd  actually run  out of petrol  and that old gauges lie, quite a lot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It will all come good eventually.

Many of us have had the same problem. We just ring the AA or RAC and get it home for free*

Takes a while, but the saving on fuel often offsets the cost of membership.

Are there such organisations that could be used to your benefit?

I wouldn't want it hanging around in a compound for any length of time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

After 5 hours, the tow truck arrived and the car was transported to their locked parking lot. And I was dropped off at a hotel. This has become one of the most frustrating days of my life and I have lost all want to drive cars on long trips now.

After thinking about it, I suspect that the Mercedes has a fuel problem. And the plan is to have it transported home.

20220812_231848.thumb.jpg.38de47d9f5fe34060582b71dabd391ea.jpg

Sorry that the day ended less gloriously than it began. It's a very old car that probably has not been driven too far in a while. I'm sure the new day will bring restored enthusiasm. With a little bit of love and tinkering I'm sure it can be made reliable. 

I agree that it's most likely a fuel issue. Id expect an old diesel engine to start on compression alone in high ambient temperatures even if the heat cycle isnt working. Charge the battery, change the filters check the pump etc and I'm sure you'll fall back in love with it once it's running smoothly. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Mally said:

It will all come good eventually.

Many of us have had the same problem. We just ring the AA or RAC and get it home for free*

Takes a while, but the saving on fuel often offsets the cost of membership.

Are there such organisations that could be used to your benefit?

I wouldn't want it hanging around in a compound for any length of time.

I have roadside assistance through a Norwegian car club membership and they seem to want to cover the transport of the Mercedes home also.

And I want to get it home as soon as possible as I'm terrified something will happen to it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Jim Bell said:

Sorry that the day ended less gloriously than it began. It's a very old car that probably has not been driven too far in a while. I'm sure the new day will bring restored enthusiasm. With a little bit of love and tinkering I'm sure it can be made reliable. 

I agree that it's most likely a fuel issue. Id expect an old diesel engine to start on compression alone in high ambient temperatures even if the heat cycle isnt working. Charge the battery, change the filters check the pump etc and I'm sure you'll fall back in love with it once it's running smoothly. 

I love this car already despite the issues. And I am sure that this will be reliable when I get to work on it fixing it and carry out maintenance and various things.

And I think most of the problems with the car are due to it not being well taken care of in recent years.

But one thing is certain the seller (used car dealer) of the car was not honest. We struggled a lot to get it started and according to him, this had not happened until now, which I immediately realized was a lie. And it was very clear that he didn't know much about cars either and one of the things he did before I bought it was washing it and it has bad gaskets so the boot was full of water. But the car seems solid and that was the main reason why I bought it, even though the seller was clearly lying and there were problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some parts appear to be available on autodoc for your heckflosse 190d. Not expensive at all.

Might even be worth asking your local Mercedes Benz main dealer for prices for service items filters, hoses etc.

Wonder if your car has an in-tank metal guaze filter as well as the inline and main fuel filters?

https://www.autodoc.co.uk/spares/mercedes-benz/heckflosse/heckflosse-w110/45643-190-dc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

I love this car already despite the issues. And I am sure that this will be reliable when I get to work on it fixing it and carry out maintenance and various things.

And I think most of the problems with the car are due to it not being well taken care of in recent years.

But one thing is certain the seller (used car dealer) of the car was not honest. We struggled a lot to get it started and according to him, this had not happened until now, which I immediately realized was a lie. And it was very clear that he didn't know much about cars either and one of the things he did before I bought it was washing it and it has bad gaskets so the boot was full of water. But the car seems solid and that was the main reason why I bought it, even though the seller was clearly lying and there were problems.

 

Sounds like a used car dealer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Nullzwei said:

Some parts appear to be available on autodoc for your heckflosse 190d. Not expensive at all.

Might even be worth asking your local Mercedes Benz main dealer for prices for service items filters, hoses etc.

Wonder if your car has an in-tank metal guaze filter as well as the inline and main fuel filters?

https://www.autodoc.co.uk/spares/mercedes-benz/heckflosse/heckflosse-w110/45643-190-dc

Yes, I've also have checked around a bit and some like Autodoc still have some parts for these. And have called my local Mercedes dealer and they were also still able to get some parts but also recommended this site to me  https://www.niemoeller.de/en

And according to this site it has no such in tank filter so hope so.

1171745828_Screenshot2022-08-1314_39_56.thumb.png.a5da0d85b146fcec76b143c9d3c6f585.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Nibbler said:

Fantastic! You will have it up and running in no time! The starting issue can maybe be down to valve clearance. Not uncommon on the OM615 engine. I guess that you have the OM621 engine so i’m only guessing here, but it’s worth a try.

I hope so. And yes this is a possibility so have to look at this as well if i cannot find out what is wrong. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/12/2022 at 5:25 PM, Dyslexic Viking said:

I'm now waiting for a tow truck as I can't get it to start and the battery is almost dead. I'm starting to wonder if the glow system is completely dead. But we'll see. If we get it to start, Than i wonder if I should try to drive all the way home tonight so I don't have to stop the engine anymore. Updates will come.

IME diesels being annoying but not obvious is often air leaks - most recently an A170 CDi which would just decide to misbehave - had bubbles in the line after the filter and it was a perished hose, so you'd prime, run, then get an airlock again.

Of course older diesel engines may be different - but perished flexible lines or pinholed metal lines would be my first points of call - and what a beautiful car to be checking all the bits on! Kjempe-something. søt was cute? I think skummel? was scary? Goths = limited vocab needed. But what fits for "cool"?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd imagine that much as mentioned above, changing the fuel lines, filters and checking valves and injectors will make a huge amount of difference.

Almost certainly just suffering from a little neglect.

But you had to try to drive it home, no one on here would have done anything differently. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Years ago after i had done a service on my w201 190d the engine would not go past a certain amount of revs. Turned out the fuel flow was restricted because i had over tightened the metal fuel filter and the filters rubber seal has distorted restricting the flow of fuel.

From what i can see online the OM621 uses a beautiful alloy fuel filter casting (left of IP in below pic?) with a filter element inside  but it may be worth paying attention to all the filter bodies unions and their torque values.

 

om621.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, RichardK said:

IME diesels being annoying but not obvious is often air leaks - most recently an A170 CDi which would just decide to misbehave - had bubbles in the line after the filter and it was a perished hose, so you'd prime, run, then get an airlock again.

Of course older diesel engines may be different - but perished flexible lines or pinholed metal lines would be my first points of call - and what a beautiful car to be checking all the bits on! Kjempe-something. søt was cute? I think skummel? was scary? Goths = limited vocab needed. But what fits for "cool"?

Thanks for the tip and this is what I also suspect that there are some bad fuel hoses that are letting in air. I've heard this happen before on a truck. My main suspicion is the 2 hoses from the fuel tank to the fuel pipes. As many forget to change these.

And your translation here into Norwegian words is correct but I am unsure about Goths and cool is kul or kult in Norwegian.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Nullzwei said:

From what i can see online the OM621 uses a beautiful alloy fuel filter casting (left of IP in below pic?) with a filter element inside  but it may be worth paying attention to all the filter bodies unions and their torque values.

Yes this is the diesel filter on the left. And there is a filter element inside. And I work a lot on old tractors, so I think I'll be fine, I hope. Just have to be very careful.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Nullzwei said:

Years ago after i had done a service on my w201 190d the engine would not go past a certain amount of revs. Turned out the fuel flow was restricted because i had over tightened the metal fuel filter and the filters rubber seal has distorted restricting the flow of fuel.

From what i can see online the OM621 uses a beautiful alloy fuel filter casting (left of IP in below pic?) with a filter element inside  but it may be worth paying attention to all the filter bodies unions and their torque values.

 

om621.jpg

So is that the same as the engine in yours? It really does look like a mini version of the engine in my old bus which was of the same vintage. Except it never had glow plugs.

Started fine at anything down to about 5°C but less than that it took a lot of churning but would fire eventually one cylinder at a time. Until you got to freezing where I had a convoluted system of a cable attached to the starter switch, draped out of the cab window which I would pull whilst firing a blow torch in to air intake (it had no air filter) whilst operating the throttle with the same hand I was pulling the starter with. A bit complicated but it worked. This was never a problem for London Transport of course as most of their buses lived indoors and only stopped for about four or five hours overnight so never got completely cold. 

Glow plugs is definitely a better system though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...