1988 W124 300 TurboD Coupé ''Gold'nBrown'' - intercooling it

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Evening!

Well, something was knocking on the rear axle. I traced it down to a stone hard shock absorber bush. Replaced it - knocking gone. Almost There was still a knock going over larger bumps.

So - let's take another look...



And whilst I was at it, I mixed some of my favourite rust-treatment & conservant. Petroleum jelly with bees wax, melted together and applied hot.

Ready mixture on the left, big can (4k ;D) petroleum jelly to the right...



I greased all the hydraulic lines, subframe and some parts of the floor. And soon found what was knocking... The exhaust.

The pre-silencer is from a wagon or limousine, I guess - it's too short. The pipe between cat converter & silencer is too short. The whole thing sits about 15cm too far to the front. Someone has welded in a piece of pipe between pre-silencer % silencer to take up for the shorter pipes. The same person - who knew this was the wrong exhaust - then capituleted as he found out, the middle exhaust hanger is 15cm off too... ;D





Due to the shorter pipes, they were hitting the floor; sort of the 'exit' of the exhaust tunnel:



I browsed through my collection of scrap metal - found a Mini controll arm shaft which had the right size, a thread, big nut & washer...

Had to drive to the gas dealer, before I could do some welding - bottle was completely drained... Went on the autobahn, reached the end of the speedo scale (awesome!!) got back and made some truly awefull welds... ;D



Yeah - I can botch too! ;D

Cheers,
Jan

[rr69h]

What? No cable ties? No bodge is complete without them! ;D

The underside appears to be in really good nick, congratulations!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Sept 7, 2012 9:39:15 GMT rr69h said:

What? No cable ties? No bodge is complete without them! ;D

The underside appears to be in really good nick, congratulations!

Hi!

Um - you'r right, I realy should add some... ;D

Yes! That's a big relief! One subframe mount is rusty, but not gone. Massaged it with petroleum jelly, will decide if I weld it after the winter.

But best of all: the engine has some bigger oil leaks - which prevented a lot. The engine crossmember has not the slightest sign of rust! The jacking points are a bit crusty, but probably not rotten through - will investigate soon. I love oil leaks! ;D They prevent so much damage...

The car has one major rust spot however; the wheel arch is quite rusty, but no holes yet:



Possibly an aftermath of the accident damage... If I'm good, I can repair this without having to repaint a large area - which would be good, as I guess this colour is hard to re-paint resp. touch up...

Cheers,
Jan

PS: I you cast a look at the differential mount - you'll see to which job I'm realy not looking forward to..... As it means: diff out...

[doctorblack]

She's coming along!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

In the second pic you can see it's been repainted in the past Most angles it's invisble, some angles it's hard to look past... Weird colour that

Cheers,
Jan

[stretch]

still looks very nice

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Thanks!

----------

Today I basically spent the whole day sitting on those comfy, brown leather seats. And yet didn't realy do many kilometers. As I was... Standing. Still. On every road I took - there was a traffic jam... But eventually the raods cleared, as I was getting deeper into the Pfälzer Wald - approaching a smal village just next to the one I collected the car from.

It was rainy, misty and the trees showed the first traces of yellow & red leafes - autumn has started there.



On the way home I stopped by in Landau, to deliver some /8 diesel engine parts I sold - and headed finaly home after a long chat & some coffee. Hat to get a nip of overpriced oil at a fual station - though I'm sure the engine dripps more oil on the ground than it actually burns ;D Work ahead...



And that'S the wheels I collected:



Do look like the factory wheels? A bit, yes. But: these are 7x15" and have a lower ET of 35. And they'r made by my favourite 80'S tasteless plastic-fantastic tuner:



And you can also see they need some work done...

Cheers,
Jan

[GT4ME]

Thats gonna look really sexy with those wheels on

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Hi!

Today's update will contain some boring KE-Jetronic troubleshooting. When I collected the wheels, I noticed that fuel consumption was a bit higher than expected, driving with moderate pressure on the louder&faster-pedal. I've not dtermined exact figures, but around the 13-14l mark (per 100km - resp. ~20MPG).

And idle was getting worse, hot start were getting worse and the exhaust smelled a bit of fuel. Not strong, bu notable.

Soooo... I ordered a new voltmeter which reads duty cylce and dwll angle and stuff like this - awesome tool! Also ordered a laser thermometer, wanted one for a long time.



First of: measurements of the duty cycle. This is the KE-Jetronics output for either error code, or reading of lambda values, resp. mixture. If the ECU notes an error, it gives out a specific % value. If there'S no (detected) error, the % reading osciliates around 45 to 50%, depending of model & engine. Round diagnosis socket, - to 2, + to 3.



The actuall value was 49.3% - I had the polarity wrong the first time. Some voltmeters require reverse polarity. Confirmation: ignition on II, the voltmeter should read 70%. 30% is wrong polarity = wrong measurements.

The actuall value was 49.3%, not osiciliating. And then it climbed to 92.3% and restd there. Which is very odd - as 90% is no error code. Only 80% and 100% exist as error codes. Hum ho hum. Strange...

Bit carpet lifting later revealed a corroded plug for the O² sensor's heating. Cleaned the contacts - but notihing changed. With the lambda signal disconnected the engine runs worse... Perhaps the 92.3% mean 100% (or 95-100% sometimes) which would be 'runing lean' or a shorted signal cable (earth). Cable inspected, nothing found.

Next: mA measurement on the regulator on the fuel metering head. Should osciliate around 0mA, +/- 3mA. Don't know if my digital voltmeter is perhaps too slow, but I got differing values of about 2-3mA. 2-3mA at 2000RPM.

This doesn't sound too wrong, but I think it actually doesn't osiciliate. Perhaps a problem with the O² sensor, as the duty cycle measurement would suggest.

Next up: resistance of the sensors. Intake air temp. and coolant temp.

Intake air temp:

°C - kOhm - what it measn for the ECU

16° - 3,7 --> -30-35°!?
25° - 2,7 --> -10°
50° - 1,3 --> +20°

Water temp:

°C - kOhm - what it measn for the ECU

50° - 1,7 - 30°
70° - 0,92 - 45°
75° - 0,8 - 50°
80° - 0,7 - 55°
85° - 0,6 - 60°

That's three possible faults so far... And about 120€ for sensors...

I'll confirm the sensor reading in a kettle tomorrow, 'specially the air temp sensor. It was not easy to get good readings of the temperature. But Isuspect it's fried. On the pre-'89 KE the air intake temperature has a good deal of influence on the mixture, so I'll probably HAVE to replace that. Luckilyit's only 18€. The water temp sensor though comes with a 70€ price tag... Ouch! Oxygen sensor was 35€ (luck - got on of eBay from a insolvency clearing).

I'm getting confident with the KE - but I'm not sure if I'm interpreting all the values correctely, especially the duty cyle readings. But something is definately wrong - and it looks like I have a good lead

Ok, enough of this. Boring and nerv wrecking stuff aside; I also started sanding the wheels. Well, one wheel - the worst.





I'm not going to strip them to bare metal, only where needed, resp. where the paint flakes off due to corrosion. Hard work to get between the 'spokes'... I suddenly remembered whyI didn't restore and sold the set of 6x10" Cosmic wheels I had ;D

Also sorted a set of good 205/60 tyres.

Cheers,
Jan

[rr69h]

Ah yes, the wonders of the KE. Once you get your head around the voltmeter it's pretty straight forward and it looks like you're on the right track.

Very interesting too by how much the temp-sensors are out after over 20 years of useage! They might be the culprit of your strange 92% error code as well as the 0²-sensor. If you decide to change the latter start soaking it in WD40 NAOW. They can be a pig to remove.

Good luck!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Sept 15, 2012 8:24:11 GMT rr69h said:

Ah yes, the wonders of the KE. Once you get your head around the voltmeter it's pretty straight forward and it looks like you're on the right track.

Very interesting too by how much the temp-sensors are out after over 20 years of useage! They might be the culprit of your strange 92% error code as well as the 0²-sensor. If you decide to change the latter start soaking it in WD40 NAOW. They can be a pig to remove.

I realy hope so! Intake temp feeler is the only I don't have 2nd hand... 18€ at Bosch's - that's Ok. But the coolant sensor is still 45€ at Bosch's... Yikes! Shame I have the early type with two pins, the later 2 pin sensor is a 1/3 or the price...

WD40? Ze VOLKSSPRAY? ;D No... I found something much better: Brunox Turbospray! With that stuff undoing rotten bolts on a cat converter was like undoing new bolts (well almost ;D). Awesome stuff!

Tried one of the Lorinser wheels on;



And painted the first wheel, mainly to see if it is possible with cans - I feared I might not get enough paint between the spokes. But; looks like it worked OK



And compared to a unpreped wheel:



Not that bad I think

[TurboDieselWeasel]

And finished the second wheel. Next investement: sand blaster... My arms hurt.

[rr69h]

Sept 15, 2012 11:39:59 GMT TurboDieselWeasel said:

Brunox Turbospray!

Haha, the name alone is enaugh reason to get a can and confuse the heck out of unsuspecting passengers. ;D

[TurboDieselWeasel]

You know - they even got they'r own song you can sing for your passengers ;D ;D ;D

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Update on the KE-troubleshoot; I almost didn't managed to order (yes, managed - shoul've seen the mahoosive, semi-covered knockers of the new girl behind the counter - masive distraction and sudden lack of oxygen support in the brain region ) a air intake temperature sensor. Wanted to collect it this evening - but - the order was canceled as it is not available... D'oh!

And... But let's start from the beginning; the were two types of coolant temperature senders used on the KE. The first version with a two-pin connector, and the later 4-pin connector. The change was somewhere in '89.

My most favourite car parts dealer could not only not deliver the intake temp. sender - they also couldn't find the early type of coolant temp. sender... Only the later 4-pin type was available. HmmHmmHmm. Bit of investigating later I found out that both sensors have the same curve & values - so only a slight change in the wiring loom is neccesary to make the later work in my car. As a bonus (found the BOSCH numbers online) it's 60% cheaper - and since they couldn't deliver the intake temp. sensor, I got a 25% reduction in price as an appologie - now: 21€ Nice!

All I had to find was the four-pin connector. I had two KE wiring looms - both turned out to be of the earlyer type... Not good. Good however was; one of the looms had the intake temp. sensor still attached to it - and it was reading correctly ;D



Oxygen sensor also turn up - but I couln't get the old sensor off yet... Due to lack of a 22mm ring-wrench

And update on the wheels; got all four painted & put them in the trunk - new tyres tomorrow







Cheers,
Jan

[hairnet]

pics of the laydee please ;D

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Sorry to dissappoint you... ;D

Got tyres fitted today. On the way home I spotted this:



And this:



Got stuck in traffic as as truck driver decided he's freshen up the new Autobahn paving with a load of resin.... Was cool though to be able to walk on the Autobahn without any traffic (on the other lane, whichwas fully closed)



I bought the tyres with those Borbet wheels which I will sell on. And got the tyres fitted to the Lorinser wheels. But it turned out I did not have the correct wheel studs with them so couldn't fit them but in the trunk...



But I think they'r going to look good



That's all for now...

Cheers,
Jan

[zook]

Sept 19, 2012 18:29:46 GMT TurboDieselWeasel said:

dunno what it is about this pic, but that is one fine looking benz you have there sir. even though it aint a 116

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Thanks!

------------------------------------------

Went to investigate the grinding noise coming from the rear brakes... First thing I found: the person who worked on the brakes before me was a bit bold and didn't push the securing pins for the brake pads in... And the caliper bolts were only hand-tight



The discs were too scared and rusty to reuse them, pads were still OK - but I put a set of pads & discs on the rear, to be on the safe side.



Unfortunately, the grinding persists... Hand brake shoes looked good, didn't replace them... Hmmm. Pistons were not stuck... HmmHmmHmm.

Also found out that one tyre on the rear is actually a year older than the car Can't be that bad though, was still good for 140MPH ;D



Time for a new oxygen sensor, as the old one was sending some 'interesting' data to the ECU...



The old one was stuck REALY tight, had to use the 1kg hammer all the way... And when I saw this, my heart sank quite drastically...



Stripped thread..... FFUU!! I have just sold my welder, and even IF I had a lambda boss at hand, it would've meant taking off the whole exhaust, as the sensor is ontop the exhaust pipe...

Luckily, the thread in the exhaust was not stripped and the sensor went in without problems and is tight



Engine runs a lot smoother now and the exhaust fumes are less smelly... Left to do on the KE-Jetronic front: chnage the coolant temp sensor. I'm waiting on the connector, then I can re-wire it for the newer 4-pin sensor.

[Onne]

Is that coolant sensor the one at the back of the head? I'm sure I got a two pin one not long back...