Benzin'

[Rusty Pelican]

WOW , You seem to be having issues with the 190 , im learning a lot - important since i bought a 2.6 one a week ago , as for route canal you got out of that one but into the busted tooth extaction , i had one removed a year or so ago and got sommat called " dry socket " after the extraction - MAN THE PAIN !!!!! , For a week solid .

[SiC]

13 hours ago, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

Turn the knob all the way to the bottom until it clicks. The car has a conventional water valve, but it’s open all the time, with the temperature governed by vacuum operated mixer flaps. The water valve only closes when you turn the knob all the way to the click. 
 

The outboard face level vents change temperature, but the centre ones are fresh air only. This is by design, an old Merc quirk which leads to countless forum threads by people who think their heater is defective.  This might have been a good idea when the cars were new (although for the life of me I can’t think why)  but these damn vents never seal properly and in this and both the 124s there always was a small stream of ice cold air leaking through them. 

The fresh air thing reminds me of many pre-80s British cars. Presumably the thought is that cold air directly from the outside is the healthiest air to get coming in?

My W211 has one too - centre control and I think the front air vent on the dash. I think the facelift finally got rid of it. 

Another peculiarity and along the same lines is that button I'm point to. It enables/disables the carbon filters in the HVAC air flow. All moderns I've known just stick it directly into the airflow. But Mercedes seemed to have gone to the effort of putting a control flap in so you can either have unfiltered fresh air or fully filtered air (still always pollen filtered). Later models appear to have ditched it. 

[MJK 24]

Stick with the old Merc!

I bought one from a very well respected classic Merc dealer in September 17.  Supposed to have been checked to within an inch of its life etc.

Gave me all sorts of bother initially.  Including a fail to proceed at the side of the road one day!  I persevered and worked my way through stuff and got there in the end.

I’ve had it over six years now and put 30,000 miles on it and it perfectly reliable.  They’re quite unique in the way they drive.  In some ways, as modern feeling as a contemporary car.  In other ways, very antiquated!

Mine is a 2.5D.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

18 hours ago, SiC said:

The fresh air thing reminds me of many pre-80s British cars. Presumably the thought is that cold air directly from the outside is the healthiest air to get coming in?

My W211 has one too - centre control and I think the front air vent on the dash. I think the facelift finally got rid of it. 

Yes, my P6 had it too. Even my Rover 45 had a it, switchable, on the centre vents. Surely no-one has ever wanted it?

The switchable carbon filter is a classic bit of Mercedes complication, I love it. 

23 hours ago, Rusty Pelican said:

WOW , You seem to be having issues with the 190 , im learning a lot - important since i bought a 2.6 one a week ago , as for route canal you got out of that one but into the busted tooth extaction , i had one removed a year or so ago and got sommat called " dry socket " after the extraction - MAN THE PAIN !!!!! , For a week solid .

That is beautiful. The 2.6 must be a welcome performance boost too. 

I am terrified of dry socket! Especially as it will happen over the Christmas break, if it happens. But the risk is worth it, on my way home last night the pain had flared up so much I wanted to kamikaze the car off the bridge. Orajel says "use no more than 4 times per day", get screwed, I'm using it like Aquafresh right now. (btw, a knighthood for whoever invented Orajel, please)

3 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

Stick with the old Merc!

I bought one from a very well respected classic Merc dealer in September 17.  Supposed to have been checked to within an inch of its life etc.

Gave me all sorts of bother initially.  Including a fail to proceed at the side of the road one day!  I persevered and worked my way through stuff and got there in the end.

I’ve had it over six years now and put 30,000 miles on it and it perfectly reliable.  They’re quite unique in the way they drive.  In some ways, as modern feeling as a contemporary car.  In other ways, very antiquated!

Mine is a 2.5D.

I was actually looking for a diesel, of any sort, when I bought this. A 2.5 would've been great. I actually was trying to buy a diesel Laguna but the dealer wouldn't answer the phone so I bought a 30 year old Mercedes instead. Probably for the best, Lagunas don't have a reputation for reliability. 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

The Never Ending Quest to get a Cap & Rotor, an update:

My eBay rotor arm: Arrived. 

My "rush delivery" rotor and cap: arrived, minus the rotor. Paperwork said the rotor was included in the shipment. Vendor quick to respond, apparently their subcontractor didn't have any so they didn't include it. Or refund me. Or even tell the vendor. Refunded.

Let's check in on the Autodoc order I placed on the 12th:

fuck off.

 

Despite all these hopeless, hopeless businesses, I have managed to assemble a rotor arm and distributor cap. With them fitted I did 40 miles yesterday, incident free. Was the cap or rotor the problem? Or is the intermittent fault just hiding for now? Bookmark this thread to find out! 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Meh. I got 50% off wing mirrors when I got too close to the payment screen at the McDonalds drive through.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

The morning after the first breakdown, I was tentatively driving to work when there was a huge bang from the rear of the car, followed by a loud hissing sound. I've had tyres blow out before, and this didn't feel like a tyre blew out. I pulled into a bus stop and sprung from the car to investigate. It didn't take long to get to the bottom of it. To jump the car the night before, I'd taken a spare battery and jump leads. I left the battery in the boot and immediately forgot about it. Then, that morning, for no apparent reason (I was driving down a straight road) the battery fell into one of the wells in the boot and pierced a can of lithium grease I had purchased 12 hours prior. The can exploded. 

So it was time to sort out the boot. 

However tatty my car is, the boot is always clean and clear. I hate cluttered boots, and I hate dirty boots even more. If the spare wheel is in there, it should be clean, too. I also hate a boot you can't leave a coat in, and this boot was damp and musty. Not tolerable. 

Water gets into the boot, and then condenses on the bootlid. This condensation then runs down the bootlid into the channel behind the latch, and then when you open the boot, it all suddenly empties into the boot. This video illustrates it very nicely at about 20 seconds:

I found the source of the water ingress and plugged it. I also employed Kent's suggestion from the video of drilling two train holes in the bootlid, which immediately dribbled a load of water onto the taillights so that's definitely going to be a big help. I left the boot open all day, then when it started to get dark I stuck a fan heater in there for half an hour to completely dry it out. 

The carpet, miraculously unharmed by the burst-lubrication, was damp and musty. The hose will sort this out! My hose attachment was all fucked up by the frost a while ago, but I bought new a one. Although it was pretty frosty a couple of weeks ago... I hope it's okay...

Oh dear. 

The carpet came up nice though. Smells of Woolite. I draped it over a radiator and put the heating on a little early (a move which likely cost more than ordering a new carpet) and I'm pleased to say the boot is now really quite pleasant, and up to my exacting standards. 

[alcyonecorporation]

Please include pic of sad car shoes. 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

9 minutes ago, alcyonecorporation said:

Please include pic of sad car shoes. 

 

 

(Ah you can still see fuckin' lithium. I thought I got it all)

[alcyonecorporation]

11 minutes ago, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

 

 

(Ah you can still see fuckin' lithium. I thought I got it all)

but they 
don't what it means 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

On 10/12/2023 at 23:05, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

Btw, with New Year’s resolutions coming up, if you want a diet you’ll actually stick to, may I suggest SEARING TOOTH PAIN? I had my failed extraction on Wednesday, and as you can see I’m finally constantly under my calorie goal.

 

Check this shit out:

I'm in a cool room sweating profusely because the pain is gnawing into my very soul but in only 12 days I have dropped enough weight to fall from Obese to Overweight on the BMI. Amazing!!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

🦷 THE TOOTH IS GONE! 🦷 Sitting here waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off. I thought it was hurting so much just from being pulled and pushed around the other day, turns out it was infected? Whatever, all that's left is for me to spend the next few hours repeatedly googling "how much bleeding is excessive bleeding". 

Speaking of bleeding, I dared to drive the Mercedes yesterday so it pissed coolant all over the place. One of the heater hoses had developed a little split:

Due to the shape it wasn't possible to trim it, so while I wait for a new hose to arrive I effected a repair using a bit of bicycle inner tube. 

BUT : In the last two days it has stalled twice. Most recently 15 minutes ago on my way home from the dentist. The symptoms are the same - the engine revs will falter a little, but the car will keep driving. Then a few minutes later, stall. The last few times have all been while coming to a stop. It took a few attempts, but the car restarted.

What the fuck is it?

 

[Volksy]

32 minutes ago, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

BUT : In the last two days it has stalled twice. Most recently 15 minutes ago on my way home from the dentist. The symptoms are the same - the engine revs will falter a little, but the car will keep driving. Then a few minutes later, stall. The last few times have all been while coming to a stop. It took a few attempts, but the car restarted.

What the fuck is it?

That kinda was what mine was doing. Sat at traffic lights, it would hunt about, revs going up and down, resulting is comedy 'LoRider' shenanigans with the rear end if in Drive. Then it would just cut out. Sometimes would restart with no issues, sometimes with loads of cranking as if it had semi-flooded itself. Would always restart though. 

I swapped the Idle Control Valve, with little to no effect, but the replacement OVP fitted on the weekend seems to have done the trick. I've used it since Saturday for running about and the commute, with no embarrassing incidents as yet. 
My new OVP was a red topped, twin fuse, 9 pin one. The original was just that, the original (back top, single fuse, 7 pin).

I'm still waiting for the spare cheap OVP's to arrive, will swap one of those in to see if the problem re-occurs.
 

 

Best of luck with the toothache. I used to get it really bad. Nowt worse!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

17 minutes ago, Volksy said:

That kinda was what mine was doing. Sat at traffic lights, it would hunt about, revs going up and down, resulting is comedy 'LoRider' shenanigans with the rear end if in Drive. Then it would just cut out. Sometimes would restart with no issues, sometimes with loads of cranking as if it had semi-flooded itself. Would always restart though. 

I swapped the Idle Control Valve, with little to no effect, but the replacement OVP fitted on the weekend seems to have done the trick. I've used it since Saturday for running about and the commute, with no embarrassing incidents as yet. 
My new OVP was a red topped, twin fuse, 9 pin one. The original was just that, the original (back top, single fuse, 7 pin).

I'm still waiting for the spare cheap OVP's to arrive, will swap one of those in to see if the problem re-occurs.
 

 

Best of luck with the toothache. I used to get it really bad. Nowt worse!

I put a new OVP in last night. Also replacing the black top with the red top. It was driving so well. Then stalled this morning. 

[SiC]

Can the KE have the electronic portion unplugged and run purely on mechanical injection?

[Volksy]

I think it does need the ECU etc to run.

It's my understanding that he OVP is solely there to protect the prehistoric injection ECU from voltage spikes. It does this by cutting the power rapidly to the ECU which can cause rough running  as it cuts in and out etc. I assume there must be a way of wiring it out, but you risk a blown/melty ECU which no doubt will be a world of pain. 
 

[Surface Rust]

Apologies for wading in, but is there a chance the OVP is doing what it should be doing and protecting the ECU from a regulator on the alternator that's on its way out?

[SiC]

As you all know I don't know much about K/KE. So I've had a read. Some of it is similar to the L-Jetronic that I had on my E28 and I sorted the drivability issues on that.

This is a reasonable document describing some of the parts:

https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/tech/fuel_injection/BoschMechanicalFuelInjection.pdf

Couple of thoughts. 

Cold start injection is done by a thermoswitch. Could this be failing and leading to the injector triggering again and over fuelling?

Auxiliary air valve controls high idle when cold. Should be closed when warm. Presumably if the pipes are clamped shut it still runs?

My thought here is that if it's been failing/clogged then it could have been stuck open leading to high idle. Someone then gone in and turned the idle down. But then the air valve has started closing up better recently. Thus leading the idle to drop further than it should to ultimately be too low. I'd expect that it should be possible to rev it out though as it drops. 

[SiC]

15 minutes ago, Surface Rust said:

Apologies for wading in, but is there a chance the OVP is doing what it should be doing and protecting the ECU from a regulator on the alternator that's on its way out?

If this is correct:

https://www.benzworld.org/threads/the-ovp-relay.3054198/

Then the engine still should run (limp home) when fully warmed up even if it shuts off the electronic control system. 

That said the ECU could be compensating for an issue in the mechanical setup and loosing the electronic control portion doesn't allow it to continue to run?

[SiC]

56 minutes ago, Volksy said:

I think it does need the ECU etc to run.

This chap does a demo with it disconnected to show it running without:

 

 

That said, as I said above, the mechanical aspect might not be working that well and the ECU is compensating for it. I guess an easy test is to see if it runs with the ECU disconnected - both normally and when in a cutout state. 

Of course still, if the ECU is cycling on/off from a OVP cycling in/out then it wont help smooth running very much!

[SiC]

I presume the pump/accumulator/regulator are in good health?

These are quite informative videos of you haven't seen them:

 

 

 

I did find better at 1.25x and 1.5x speed though.

[Volksy]

So it seems The Big doesn't want to be left out. Been driving great for the last few days... Low and behold it was an absolute pig on the way home. Cutting out, idle speed all over the place. I'm beginning to think it is possibly atmospheric, as it's been dry the last few days. Pouring down on the way home. There is no evidence of stuff getting soaked though, scuttle where the ECU is, is bone dry. 

Always restarted when it cut out, maybe it's ignition related, I've not checked the cap etc as yet. 

It's like a dog that shits on the carpet when you're not looking or too busy to do anything about it. As it'll sit happily idling away at standstill in Park. 

[captain_70s]

I ripped apart my Volvo's K Jet system multiple times trying to fix a hot start problem. Never did find the cause, it sort of semi-cured itself eventually.

On paper it's quite simple but in reality a single failing component can cause the entire system to shit itself in inexplicable ways.

I think K Jet just has a 30 year lifespan, at which point all the expensive, unobtanium Bosch parts require replacement - Because superior German engineering.

 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Update. Things still not going very well - it played up both going to and from work yesterday. I dropped into my local motor factor - the proprietor also owns a broken 190E - and he loaned me a fancy multimeter which does duty cycle and can potentially help diagnose it. Well, it's certainly fancier than my multimeter, which I bought about ten years ago for £1.97 including first class post. His multimeter does this when you turn it on, which confirms it speaks the same language as the car: 

The next step was to drive the car around the backstreets until it stalled, and then hook this thing up and see what it had to say. I did loops of deserted suburban streets for 15 minutes with no issue, until I accidentally turned down a street terminating at a main road. With two cars behind, the second I pulled into traffic, it cut out. Awesome. I got it restarted and limped it out of the way. It was idling, but any touch of the throttle killed it. Multimeter time. I hooked it up and... a quick flash of 666... then nothing. 

When you looked at the photo above, did you notice the low battery warning? Because I sure as shit didn't. I put the dead multimeter back in the glovebox and waited for the car to regain composure, then drove home.

But! When I got home my AutoDoc parcel had arrived! In only twelve days. This contained the second valve cover gasket. The first one I bought was wrong (no-one says there's two. But there's two). When I test drove the car it STANK of burning oil, but I wasn't too concerned as there was oil misted all over the engine bay. I thought it was the valve cover, but the first time I took the air filter housing off I found this broken pipe:

So that was an easy fix. It did leak a little from the valve cover gasket, though, so a new one was a good idea. 

While I had such good access I was having a poke about looking for clues when I decided to test the potentiometer, which I'd forgotten to do last time. Here's the criteria:

Nominal value between 3.6 to 4.4 Ω. What's mine?

hmm, quite out of spec. Good work, cheap multimeter buddy! Friends 4 eva!

whoops!

I checked with the borrowed meter and it gave the same result. The values are correct when the air metering flap is pushed, but too low when it's closed. Could this be why it flakes out when I come off the throttle or apply the throttle from idle?

 

[SiC]

Do these fuel cut on closed throttle?

 I seem to remember these are analog ECUs. So too low a resistance I could imagine causing things to go out of whack as likely nothing to stop a too low a resistance from screwing up as I bet they don't cap the min/max resistance. 

[Rust Collector]

3 hours ago, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

whoops!

RIP MULTI MEATER U R WIV DA ANGLES N PRICNESS DI NOW XXX

[Volksy]

Interesting. 

Things with mine are also pointing to a dying/worn potentiometer. Knock off ones are not expensive, so maybe worth a try. 

[Volksy]

Does yours have a Cat? 

Mine doesn't, as it's just too early, but didn't realise until yesterday that it has this... 

 

It manually adjusts the ignition timing to suit the octane rating of the fuel used. As I'm using E5 97 it's should be on S not N.

It's certainly made it run a bit better, and less of a slouch. 

Still cuts out though.  

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

2 hours ago, Volksy said:

Does yours have a Cat? 

Mine doesn't, as it's just too early, but didn't realise until yesterday that it has this... 

 

It manually adjusts the ignition timing to suit the octane rating of the fuel used. As I'm using E5 97 it's should be on S not N.

It's certainly made it run a bit better, and less of a slouch. 

Still cuts out though.  

Yes, I have a cat. I checked my EZE-KAT things straight away, wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting that E5! 

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I'm probably throwing in the towel on this. I need the car to get to work, and the car has been laid up more than I've used it, primarily waiting for parts to arrive. Every part I've ordered has taken an eternity to get here, and now I'm looking at another two weeks of no car while I wait for a potentiometer which may or may not fix it. I am also waiting on a crankshaft position sensor I ordered over a week ago which still hasn't even been dispatched. 

It's a lovely car, and when it works I love driving it. I also love looking at it. But I think K-Jet is simply not fit for purpose in a daily driver in 2024. It's too complicated, and too delicate. In addition, while a good number of parts are available, I've never had such trouble actually receiving parts! The only people who managed to actually shove a thing in a box and post it were AliExpress. 

Unfortunately my NCB is stuck on this thing so insuring something else might be a challenge. Selling it may be a bigger challenge, this time of year. Ah well, for the second time in my life I've learnt - do not buy a K-Jet car!

Maybe a diesel next time?