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

wae said:

Around here, sockets come in 4 common attachment sizes: ¼ inch, ⅜ inch, ½ inch, and ¾ inch. 

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What nomenclature do you use to differentiate between the different sizes of sockets?

Ha ha, you got me there  That`s one more example where we still use imperial measures. All of our metric tools have inches on the sockets. The one you mentioned, and also bigger tools with 1" ad bigger in the industry. 

And as you say, I use 1/4" on small screws (M3 - M6), 3/8" on a little bigger ones (M5 - M10), and 1/2" scews/bolts/nuts from approximatley M10 and up. In really hard cases I have a 3/4" set, but it is very seldom I need that. 

When it comes to the use of metric measures on inches (as accordionfolder implicates), it is widely used in plumbing and pipes. Earlier all pipes came in imperial measures, but the standards have now been converted to metric. 

In reply to Komodo :

It's funny how stuff like that will stick around, isn't it?  What I think is even stranger is how they size tires.  The diameter of the wheel is in inches.  The width of the tread is in mm.  And then, what the hell, let's make the height of the sidewall a percentage.

@wae Thx so much for 11 pages (so-far) of MB Agony and Entertainment. 
Luckily I can only say that I've had a casual fling with a Bluetec GL350. I'm the Icon scanner nerd in my group of automotive misfits, so I've been called a few times to reset the "doomsday clock" on my friend's GL350... "Only one more start remaining!" Or something like that... The Shieb-Vagon belongs my friend's wife - and I haven't had to mess with it since they did the big emissions system recall fix thingie. Did that fix delete the DPF and EGR, or did they take a less Volkswagen vs EPA approach? 😎

Down here in Texas, we just delete everything... but I'm hoping GL350's have more class than the deleted coal-rolling F350 duallys that pick on poor little Prius's 😂

The MB "Emissions update" did not delete anything. It replaced the DPF and the DOC in the exhaust with new ones, replaced a bunch of other parts, like intake manifold, EGR, MAF, and most importantly, a new ECU with very updated programming.

There's a bunch of rumors in the diesel scene that the new administrator of EPA is gonna stop enforcing anti tampering laws, so it may be possible to get away with rolling coal soon. I would like to delete the DPF, DOC, EGR and DEF systems, just for increased reliability & MPG, but no soot please.

Yep, all that stuff and the intake manifold that they clog up got replaced as part of the settlement, but since the EPA was involved, there certainly wasn't any delete going on.

I was originally planning to have all that stuff tuned out since you can do that without kicking out massive clouds of soot, but I think those tuners have gotten harder to find lately.  And I figured that since I had 48000 miles of warranty, I'd take advantage of it. 

The word you're thinking of is schadenfreude, by the way 🤣

1) I saw a bluetec merc on the interstate and said a little prayer to the universe for them

2) I have a few projects that I'm worried about and when I get to spinning I think: "Wae rebuilt and fought Mercedes solo, I can probably manage this...."

In reply to wae :

I had a similar symptom on the rear suspension. The bag had a small leak in it that only presented itself when I parked on a particularly uneven surface that required it to extend more than normal. Once I replaced the rear bags, all was back to normal. 

Still haven't had time to try to diagnose the front air system.  What's weird is that I could hear it hissing while I was plugging the front right tire on Thursday, but I was on a schedule and didn't have time to try to locate the leak.  I drove it to Bowling Green and stopped for food on the way back.  We were in the store for about 10 minutes and by the time we came out both sides on the front were down almost all the way.  After we got home Thursday afternoon, I let the car sit for two days and the front stayed pretty much right where it should be.  Back when I first got the car, it blew out the o-ring on the air line for the front left strut, but that left the one side sitting low, not both.  So I'm assuming that it's some common component which is probably the valve block.  Maybe something in there is sticking or something?

In other news, I was on my way to pick up my daughter from visiting a friend last night when I lost the power steering.  Not long after that, of course, the dash informed me that the charging system wasn't working and I was watching the engine temps start to climb slowly.  Fortunately, I was close to home still, so I muscled it back.  Without power steering, that vehicle is basically impossible to turn at anything under about 5mph.  Good thing I have a spare belt in the back, but it kind of sucks that I only get about 20k miles out of one.

The shortened belt life could be a bad OAD on the alternator, or a bad crank damper or a bad tensioner. These parts seem trivial, but they are designed into the belt drive system. When one component fails, other things start to fail.

wae said:

.... Back when I first got the car, it blew out the o-ring on the air line for the front left strut, but that left the one side sitting low, not both.  So I'm assuming that it's some common component which is probably the valve block.  Maybe something in there is sticking or something?

As I said earlier, the valveblock is one of the few possible sources for leaks, so I think that is a good place to start. It is an electrical-pnumatic valve, and as I understand there is nothing but the nylon hose between the valveblock and the strut. A leak upstreams the valveblock should not lead to a leak on the strut. 

It is a simple job to replace the valveblock, at least on the ML. Here is a picture of my old. 

In other news, I was on my way to pick up my daughter from visiting a friend last night when I lost the power steering.  Not long after that, of course, the dash informed me that the charging system wasn't working and I was watching the engine temps start to climb slowly. 

..........

Good thing I have a spare belt in the back, but it kind of sucks that I only get about 20k miles out of one.

One thing I didn`t undetstand when you had your motor out and in molecules is why you did not replace all serviceparts relating to the belt then. When I worked on my engin now, I replaced the belt, the belt tentioner, the waterpump, the generator pulley, and the two small wheels (don`t know what you call them) when I first where in there. According to my car mechanic friend all of those parts are serviceparts, and a broken generator pulley alone can do great harm to the engine in worst case. 

I wouldn't rule out the harmonic balancer being faulty in some way, but I always assumed that the issue was that there's a bit of an oil leak from somewhere on the front of the engine and it seems to keep the belt wet.  The alternator was replaced about 40k miles ago, it got new idler pulleys around 50k miles ago, and I put a new tensioner on it when I prophylactically replaced the belt 21k miles ago.  Since a new belt is about $30 from Rock Auto, I just keep a fresh one in the back and usually drive around with the 12-pt 17mm socket and a ratchet, just in case.  When I did the last oil change I considered swapping the belt, but clearly I decided against that.

The main reason that I didn't go through and replace things like that was to avoid the "while I'm in here" spiral.  I could have used all new pistons and rods, and I could have replaced all the lifters, I could have put new cams in and used all new timing sprockets, I could have replaced all the valves with new ones, replaced the water pump, put in a new vacuum pump, gotten a new HPFP, etc etc etc, but once I started doing that, I'm not sure where it would have stopped and it would have gotten crazy expensive.  So my goal was to replace what needed to be replaced and re-use what could be reused and try to get the vehicle back on the road spending as close to the amount I was going to get from the emissions cheating settlement as possible.  The dollar value of the rebuild basically broke even with the settlement, so I'd consider that a win.  The settlement's warranty also got me a new turbocharger, one of the swirl motor sensors, a new AdBlue tank/heater/sender, and a couple other small repairs. 

I bought it in early 2017, the motor grenaded in late 2018, so 1.5 years and 30k miles in the first run.  I got it back on the road in July of 2022, so a total of 4ish years and 80k miles out of it so far.  I'm not tremendously unhappy with that.

If it's easy to find on the ML, it should be in about the same place on the GL.  It looks like this is what I'm dealing with:

I suppose maybe it's possible that the line to or from the air tank in the back might be a problem, but I don't see how that would cause both sides to drop.  And I was absolutely hearing hissing from the front of the vehicle.  Near where that valve block appears to be located.  And, yeah, that hissing noise was after I had removed the valve core and let all of the air out of the tire!  I do wish they had a slightly clearer diagram of the Airmatic system, though, so I could see if there was another spot that might be common between both sides in the front, but my thought is that I can park the vehicle in the same spot that I had it when I was plugging the tire and get it to leak and I can spray what Mercedes calls "leak detection fluid" and normal people call "soapy water" on everything until I find the bubbles.

Got the belt changed out this morning.  Interestingly, it didn't come all the way apart:

Looks like it basically came apart in the center and split. 

You got an Adam belt!

It's missing a rib...

Not long after we got out R class the right side of the car would sink to the ground over night, not having a lot of time then I took it to an Indi MB shop and they found that one of the nylon lines from the compressor had rubbed on the bumper support, gotten a hole in it,  The compressor tried to compensate for the hole and burned up.

wae said:

The main reason that I didn't go through and replace things like that was to avoid the "while I'm in here" spiral.  I could have used all new pistons and rods, and I could have replaced all the lifters, I could have put new cams in and used all new timing sprockets, I could have replaced all the valves with new ones, replaced the water pump, put in a new vacuum pump, gotten a new HPFP, etc etc etc, but once I started doing that, I'm not sure where it would have stopped and it would have gotten crazy expensive.  So my goal was to replace what needed to be replaced

That is totally understandable, I would probably have done the same reasoning. 

If it's easy to find on the ML, it should be in about the same place on the GL. 

Here is a video of that job on an ML. 

Looks like it has the same location on the GL.

Just remember to support all wheels. When you pull out the nylon hoses, the struts will collapse. (How do I know )

I suppose maybe it's possible that the line to or from the air tank in the back might be a problem, but I don't see how that would cause both sides to drop.  And I was absolutely hearing hissing from the front of the vehicle.  Near where that valve block appears to be located. 

....

I do wish they had a slightly clearer diagram of the Airmatic system, though, so I could see if there was another spot

Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, the thin nylon hoses goes directly from the valveblock to the struts. That should give you this potentional places for leaks:

• The strut
• The fitting on the strut
• The hose
• The fitting on the valveblock (if I remember correctly there is an O-ring on that fitting sealing against the valveblock housing)
• The valveblock

However, if the symptom is that it leaks when you park the car in a certain angel, I don`t think the problem is the valvebloc itself. Then someting is leaking when twisted.