They Said it Can't be Fixed - A Journey to the Inside of a Mercedes Bluetec

Turns out that it ran the fuel pump because the key was in the "run" position.  I didn't realize I had even left it in the ignition!  I pulled the key out and gave it power again.  It didn't complain about anything, but I also didn't try to activate the ISM to take it out of Park.  I'll try that once I have the fuel lines all hooked up and bolted down, though - I was waiting to get the turbo in to do that.

I did get the battery out - what a pain in the ass that was!  Once that was out of the way, I also pulled out the aux battery so I could measure that and order a replacement.  Now it's time to go home and try to figure out what the instructor in my training class was talking about today - apparently OSPF is both boring and incomprehensible to me....

Exhaust collectors are attached to the turbo and the EGR pipe is on.  That's a couple things off the list!  The EGR pipe only fits one way, but like a USB cable I didn't get it right until the third try.  I found that starting with the vertical bolt that you can't see is the winning move.  Once that's started, do the other vertical bolt and then move to the horizontal one that you can't see and finally the horizontal one that you can see.  To help get those started, I used my USB endoscopic camera so I could actually see if things were lined up.

Next up, I need to connect the downpipe to the turbo.  It will hang a bit loose for the moment since I don't have a DPF for it to mate with.

Jim, I was thinking about your problem...  Any chance it's a simple as the connection to the ism got pulled when the engine came out?

The big red wire is power to the glow plug controller.

Don't forget, there will be a ton of codes since you powered up with some things still unplugged. No big deal, just don't panic because there are 27 new fault codes. Clear them before starting, if you like.

On mine, it got scanned thoroughly with a good Autel scanner today. It did still do the freakout, light up the dash approx 5 seconds after the battery was connected. Every other module is online, the CAN gateway is good. But, it is both the ISM and the trans conductor plate that are off line. 2 separate modules, that both live in/on the trans that were both unplugged for 4 months. Now that I think about it, every other module (even the ECM) remained connected to the vehicle central nervous system, though the aux battery did eventually discharge to 4.5V.

Worst case, I have an appointment to drop it off at the local MB guru on 5/16.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

Yes!  Of course that's what it is!  I was even looking around for something to plug in there at first.  Well I feel like a complete dumdum! Hehe!  Thank you!

I know the ISM is a little bit known to go bad.  I wonder if it's just a coincidence.

There is just no good reason to not have a manual override on the transmission.

Woot! It is running!

The scanner showed 2 tranny modules off line. So I pored over the diagrams in the WIS to find that the 2 tranny modules shared a common connector, X22/6. Located on top of the passenger strut tower, nowhere near the 2 connectors on the tranny that I had cleaned & reinstalled several times already. Grabbed that connector and squeezed it together, it went 'click'. It was about 1/16' shy of being fully snapped together. Hooked up battery, no weird screens or warning chimes. Cranked for 15 seconds, no joy. Cranked another 15 seconds and it fired up, smoothed out after 2-3 seconds. It's purring now.

Man, I'm glad it's running.

Can't drive it yet, lost a lot of ATF during the removal, waiting on ATF injector machine to come in the mail to allow refilling trans.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

YES!!!

Congratulations!

That's freaking fantastic!

I'm glad to hear that it was just a missed connection.  I'm guessing that the first attempt was just getting the fuel in the lines up to pressure.  What did you do to drop a bunch of trans fluid?  I didn't lose a drop on mine.

The tranny is low on fluid because I just dove in whole hog on the engine removal and pulled the radiator, PS cooler, intercooler, ATF cooler, grill, bumper....The only thing I didn't disconnect was the AC, was able to flex that out of the way.

While it sat there with the disconnected tranny cooler lines drooping, it dribbled ATF for months, plus whatever was drained out of the ATF cooler in radiator & the ATF air cooler.

For those following along at home, DON'T do what I did. It is only necessary to remove the fan module from radiator, and the big intercooler & radiator hoses. Engine can then be swung forward a few inches to disengage bellhousing & torque converter, then lift straight up. I spent hours haphazardly disassembling the nose, then even more hours carefully reassembling and it was completely unnecessary.

When restarting the OM642 with a dry fuel system, turn the key to the run position and the electric fuel pumps will run & purge air from the lines, fuel filter, HPFP.... quite audibly. It may be necessary to cycle the key on a couple times to get the fuel system to sound clear of air bubbles. Once the fuel system is as primed as the electric pumps can make it, then crank the engine. It will take a few crank cycles for the HPFP bleed the air out of the lines to the individual injectors. Then it should run. It is not necessary to crack open lines at injector to purge air, the electric pumps do an excellent job of purging 90% of the air in the system.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

Oh, yeah, everything from the radiator forward stayed in the truck for me.  I also left the power steering and A/C lines and just slid their respective pumps out of the way.  I don't think I saved any of the PS fluid because the reservoir went sideways (literally), but it was a valiant attempt, if I don't say so myself!  To get a little more flexibility in the process, I did pull the center section of the core support out, but I'm not sure if that was necessary or if it even helped at all.

I've got some more exhaust to connect and I'm going to try to get that done today.  Once the downpipe (or do they call that the "primary cat"?) is connected, I'll be able to see what I can gin up for a faux-dpf.  This morning, I went ahead and put in an order to replace the fuel rail bolts that I can't find.  Those were removed when I was in the "part-the-mother-out" phase of my life and I wasn't as careful with the collection and storage of hardware as I should have been.  The truly annoying part is that they're M7 bolts.  M-berkeleying-7.  You know who else uses M7 bolts in things?

Nobody.

I went to the local hardware stores that have the good selections of metric hardware and they all go from M6 right to M8 with absolutely nothing between.  So I'm ordering a handful of them for $1.18 each from the local Mercedes dealer.

Other than just sticking parts back onto other parts, the things that I don't have on hand to be able to proceed with the initial start are:

- Auxiliary battery.  Should be here Thursday, maybe?  FedEx tracking is weird...
- Something to go where the DPF did
- Fuel rail bolts
- Clip or retainer for coolant hose
- #6 glowplug connector also needs to be replaced with something

That list is getting shorter pretty fast!

In reply to wae :

My Volvo has 44 M7 bolts holding the cylinder head halves together. I counted.

Almost all of the fasteners you have to deal with when doing a clutch on a DeLorean are M7, too, which was fun to learn when I dropped one.  Finding it suddenly became a high priority.

I have no idea how something that should be so simple and fundamental has caused me this much heartburn, but most of my time yester was spent with the damn coolant temp sender. 

There's the little boss on the manifold where the sensor slides in, you push it down, and then (in theory) you slide a retainer clip through a little slot.  That clip pushes down on the sender and holds it in to place.

With a little bit of grease, I was able to get the sender to push down far enough that the clip was clipping in the right spot on the sender, but it would not pass through the slot in the aluminum.  I know for a fact that clip came from that spot, but it just would not go past about the halfway point.

And then, in my efforts to get the stupid thing in place, the bit of aluminum that is the front upper portion of the slot for the retaining clip broke off. 

The solution I came up with was to try twisting some wire to hold it in place using the back-side slots that the clip was supposed to pass through.  But I'm not sure that it's putting enough pressure on the sender to keep it sealed up.

In reply to wae :

I don't recall any difficulty installing the coolant temp sensor? Maybe there an old O-ring or something down in the hole preventing it from going in far enough?

BTW, I went to the PNP JY last week to get an OM642 air cleaner,  handful of e-torx bolts, interior trim latches, etc for M-B. Thanks for the heads up on that. The OM642 intake manifolds, fuel rails, turbo, etc, were still present that day.

Also scored a larger center console for Jetta wagon for our other DD, so it was a good day at the PNP.

Update on my ML350 resurrection: After verifying that the engine ran, I didn't want to run it more with the tranny oil low, so engine work stopped for a few days until the air pressure powered oil injector arrived. While waiting for that, went ahead & dropped tranny pan & filter, pulled drain plug from tork converter, let it drip for a couple days. Using new pressure oil injector, flushed ATF through the cooler circuit. A new upgraded pan & filter were installed, then filled tranny using pressure tank. Ran to NAPA to buy 2 more litres of magic M-B ATF, doh. Since it was still up on jackstands, went ahead and changed ATF in transfer case & synth 75W90 in both diffs. The only remaining overdue fluid maintenance is a brake flush, which will be done at the next brakepad change, assuming I own it that long.

With all that done, it went for it's first test drive. Used the scan tool to force a DPF regeneration, which went off with no problem. We'll see now how long it takes before it regens again. Hopefully not too soon. Everything seemed OK. Back in the shop, I though I smelled fuel. close inspection showed wetness dripping off a couple of injector line nuts, so that will need a slight retorking. The big problem is there was fresh oil running down off passenger side of engine.

Next step: pull air cleaners, batwing, etc to get access to fuel line nuts and hopefully find the oil leak.

Picked up the m7 bolts this morning.  FedEx has absolutely no clue where my new auxiliary battery is.  And I've got some 2mm stainless steel rods arriving today.

I asked the parts guy at the dealer about the clips for the radiator hoses and he said that they do not make those available individually - they come as part of the hose "assembly".  That's some bullE36 M3 right there, I tell ya.

When the rods arrive, I'm going to see about bending up my own clips.

In reply to wae :

I checked my leftover parts stash and all I have left in the way of hose clips from the Mercedes is for the coolant overflow. I'm assuming that's too small. It's ~30mm across to the outside edges. If it is the right size I'm happy to send it to you for free. 

wae said:

Picked up the m7 bolts this morning.  FedEx has absolutely no clue where my new auxiliary battery is.  And I've got some 2mm stainless steel rods arriving today.

I asked the parts guy at the dealer about the clips for the radiator hoses and he said that they do not make those available individually - they come as part of the hose "assembly".  That's some bullE36 M3 right there, I tell ya.

When the rods arrive, I'm going to see about bending up my own clips.

They are probably assuming that by the time the clips go bad, the hose needs to be replaced along with them.  German mechanics would never lose a clip.  Which reminds me, I need to track down a retaining clip for the window crank on the Miata - it went flying when I removed it last year.

In reply to dculberson :

Yeah, that's a little too small.  I just measured the one I have left and it's about 46mm, give or take.  I appreciate the offer, though!

In reply to eastsideTim :

Oh!  I've bent those up before!  I either lost or destroyed the clips on the Neon back when I was putting it together for the $2006 Challenge so I used some old paperclips to bend up replacements to avoid the budget hit.

It is dumb of me to have misplaced the clip, but it kind of blows my mind that there's no way to buy a replacement without also buying a new hose or a thermostat housing.  I guess it's unusual enough to prevent Dorman from making one, either.

I have managed to also lose the one clamp that I had, so now I need two of them.  Sigh.  The 2mm stainless rods arrived tonight so I tried bending those up.  Turns out they're just a tiny bit too large in diameter to fit in the groove - I should have gotten the 1.5mm, I guess.  So I used some 16 gauge wire and used that instead.  It seems fairly secure, so we'll see how it goes.

Right now, everything is hooked up, basically.  I need to put the batteries in - in theory FedEx has found the aux battery and will have it to me tomorrow - and then load fluids.  I don't have any exhaust past the downpipe, but I should be able to at least fire it up and see if it'll start.

I've got a little bit of time tonight.  I'm going to try to test fire it!  Updates as they become available.

No joy.  I had to close up after a short time to go play taxi driver for a kid.

I did get both of the new batteries in.  The aux battery bracket is a real pain since you can't see it.  The vent tube was all clogged with bugs and dirt so I embarked on a very long adventure to clear that out.  Someone wandered off with the blow gun for the compressor, so I pulled the tube out of the grommet to clear it with some wire.  Getting it back in the grommet was an adventure in four letter words.

I filled the oil and put some coolant in.  The coolant started leaking immediately because I neglected to reconnect the EGR valve coolant supply line. At that point l, I had to close up but in the process of putting the car back in the air, I discovered a pretty major oil leak that appears to be from the oil pan.  So I get to deal with figuring that out now.

The lower oil pan is leaking from the right rear corner.  I'm not sure if I didn't put enough sealant on, if I put it in the wrong place, if the pan was bent somehow, or if I knocked the sealant off in the process of putting things together.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Damn!  Those are pretty clean!  Are the flaps broken or just stuck?

They are all jammed, nothing appears broken.

If an hour in an Ozzyjuice rinse does not get them starting to move, then we will replace the manifolds.

An hour of Ozzyjuice and they are clean and free-moving.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

That's good news!  Those flaps are such a problem waiting to happen.