R63 AMG The Unicorn of my Destruction

mazdeuce wrote: Emissions still isn't ready, but it was totally worth it.

Clearly you didn't do it right. Do it again.

You were probably only at 5/8 throttle, I bet.

Congratulations!!! When are you doing your first oil change?

maz, Did you buy a new ac compressor from mercedes, or a parts store? Will you wait while they do the transmission service? What does an oil analysis cost?

In reply to dj06482:

The plan is to change the oil after about 100 miles. Probably unnecessary, but seems like the safe thing to do. I may wait until I get the emissions to pass and then do it. The more I drive it the less I'm concerned.

To answer Ronnie, I've used Blackstone in the past and it's somewhere close to $25, I need to check if I have any bottles left, it's been a while. The compressor was a parts store one. The MB was so thing like $800 at the good price and the parts store one was $390. I might come to regret that, but I could change one again in a couple of hours, seemed like a reasonable risk for $400. This is the first compressor failure I've had in my 17 years in Texas, knock on wood.

mazdeuce wrote: It doesn't seem to have the long lasting conditioning effects of ATF either.

I got a head full of that stuff when I had to pull the servo's out of my trucks trans. I was mind blown at how long the "conditioned" effect seemed to last even washing it twice a day with dawn dish soap to try and strip it out.

The last time it happened I wasn't even mad. It was a pain to clean up, but my hair was fabulous, fair trade.

mazdeuce wrote:

vr4 wrote: Why all the hate on Guido?* He was just installing what he was given. He didn't design the bolts. *Yes I know it's mostly in jest.

Completely in jest. I think at least half of the silliness comes from saying the name Guido. Also, the name sounds Italian and making fun of Italians for their mechanical weirdness is a long standing tradition. If I somehow run across Guido in real life, I'll buy him a beer to apologize.

I thought it was always "Gwee-dough" myself, but I worked with a Guido in Germany through work for a year or two and it was pronounced "Gee-dough".

I still called him Gwee-dough. :D

So, I've been reading the thread now for about week. I remember when this first started, then lost track and came back when I saw a post on Facebook from GRM about "Remember that R63?"

This has all be very inspiring...to a dangerous point..."I can do anything!" lol...I've rebuilt a motor or two, done engine swaps, transmission swaps, rear ends, rebuilt suspensions, and you are right...bolts is bolts, nuts is nuts. Gave me inspiration to move on with my projects and start my own threads for my stuff.

I've been reading GRM for 10 years now, followed the website on and off, the forum not so much.

This has been great! Thanks for the great story telling!

JamesGTRS

Crackers wrote: Is this thing even capable of an honest-to-goodness burnout being heavy and AWD? (Not to mention traction control.) If so, I'd pay to see it chained in the grosh doing a Ken Block/Hoonicorn burnout.

Oh hellz yes...

Does the XM Radio still work?

In reply to CapriR/SHO:

The terrifying thing is that you probably can do anything. Your limitations are money, tools, knowledge and time. Assemble those in the correct quantity and you're golden.

My stress level is now down so low I can sleep in until the sun comes up! Yay! That's still about 6:00 am, and I've got work to do. I put the van back on the lift to put the paneling back on the bottom. I took a picture but it's too blurry to post. Looks like the bottom of an R class.
And then assembled the wheel liners. Took me a few tries to get all the tabs and bits where they needed to go.
I pulled the air boxes to put the injector sound insulators back.
And then reinstalled the engine plastics and the rear cowling. I've spent so much time with the engine out that I forgot how intimidating it looks when it's all together. There is a small oil leak that is somewhere on the top of the motor on the driver's side. I was initially guessing the valve cover, but now I'm leaning toward a leaky o-ring on one of the cam sensors. I need to figure it out, but not today! Whole family to the bookstore!
I tried to get them to pose by the van, you can see how well that worked. Everyone was happy to be able to spread out and be comfortable as a big group. Mrs. Deuce commented that she remembered why we like the van so much. And yes, XM is still on.

Great work. You guys ever consider adopting a 25 year old?

I'm thinking you need a logo for this thing now.

I don't have any grand ideas, but I found this on Google.

Now is the time to drive that E36 M3 to Mercedes.

Mazduece: been lurking since the engine was blown. Awesome to see it back together. How did you isolate the compressor as the problem? Did it just go bad on the shelf as you first thought?

mndsm wrote: Now is the time to drive that E36 M3 to Mercedes and do big smokey burnouts in their parking lot..

In reply to 98horn:

The new scan tool and dumb luck.
Without the scan tool I could use AC gauge to see that I had equal pressure on each side of the compressor. A voltmeter said I had voltage to the compressor, so old school troubleshooting said to buy a new compressor.
Then I learned that the compressor didn't work the way I thought it did (solenoid control) so I bought the big scan tool so I could look at everything in detail. With that I could see the car ask the compressor to work and then throw the code for a short in the compressor. So again, new compressor. Turns out I could have had a further computer problem where the HVAC system needed to re-initialize the compressor, in which case a new compressor wouldn't have done anything. Luckily that wasn't the case and the new compressor solved the problem. Not sure why it went bad. I'm deciding if they'll refuse my core if I take it apart to look at it first.

In reply to mazdeuce:

You're obviously good at putting things back together, unless there's a sticker on a seam or something, I don't think they'd even notice.

Good to see it's back together! :) Now go enjoy and have fun. Carry home lots of chocolate chips.

I want to know what the MB dealer says when you show it to them. ;)

Got the 91 350 engine back out of my 82 GMC flatbed the other day. Bearings and ($300+ cast steel) crank all still good. Can see a crack in one piston skirt and a lot of iron* powder and small chunks in the oil. :( All gonna have to come apart to be cleaned out and hoping it hasn't chewed a cylinder beyond fixing. Probably broke a ring and trashed the block, would be my luck. Shoulda spent the extra $ on a set of new pistons.

Only takes time and money to fix...

*Makes a big fuzzy ball on end of a magnetic parts grabber, so yup, eye-ron.

When I was in college I took a road trip to Yosemite National Park. I spent a couple weeks camping illegally and climbing. The biggest climb I did was a rope solo of Half Dome. This sounds a lot more impressive than it is. The route I took is literally the easiest route that requires ropes for safety. There is one tricky part at the start of the climb, but after that it's not any harder than climbing an 800 foot jungle gym. I spent the night about 2/3 the way up the side in a single point hammock, alone, looking out over Yosemite valley, watching the stars rotate in the night sky. In the morning I finished the climb, hiked down the way hikers hike up, rode a shuttle bus into the valley, and got an ice cream sandwich. I sat down at the cafeteria tables among the families and tourists eating a late lunch.
This morning I fired up the van and drove my daughter to school. I always thought this thread would conclude with One Lap or the Sand Hills Open Road Race or something epic and cool, and it still might go that way, but even if I do those things I'll still go back to being a dad driving his kids to school in an R63.
Any story that doesn't end in tragedy ends in the mediocrity of life. If we're lucky a get to lean out and grab adventure, and then we go home. The happiest ending I can imagine for my life is to rock on the porch holding my wife's hand, and the happiest end for the R63 might just be driving the kids to school, fixing small issues, and driving to school again.

Sounds pretty fulfilling to me.....

Not a damn thing wrong with that, seth. Sounds idyllic really.

Dude. Nice work. Caught up over the weekend. Keep being rad.

Huh. Reminds me of the ending of the movie "Deliverance," with John Voight and Ned Beatty sitting down to a home-cooked family dinner after their ordeal.

mazdeuce wrote: Any story that doesn't end in tragedy ends in the mediocrity of life. If we're lucky a get to lean out and grab adventure, and then we go home. The happiest ending I can imagine for my life is to rock on the porch holding my wife's hand, and the happiest end for the R63 might just be driving the kids to school, fixing small issues, and driving to school again.

This is what life is.

This quote belongs with "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." and "Be excellent to each other."

CapriR/SHO

I'd say that driving the kids to school in the R is a thrilling conclusion to this story actually! What an awesome accomplishment!! Kudos to you and Mrs. Deuce!!