Quote:
Originally Posted by 400Eric
Make Jim F's code reader but you won't be able to believe what it says until you replace the harness.
Like I said before, the areas that are the most hidden are the areas that rot the most. Under the air cleaner, look inside the hard black housing that runs along the passenger side of the engine, you'll see some more scary wire insulation rot. And that CTS wire? The further inside the sheathing you go, the worse it gets. You probably haven't seen the worst area cause it's too far in.
I was told over 4 years ago on a thread that my harness was bad. I looked, checked and found nothing. I posted that they were all wrong and the wires were good. Three years later I was at a junkyard and saw an M119 car partially disassembled and saw that area inside that housing. It was scary! I went back out into the parking lot and immediately checked mine in that area. It was scary too! Yes, I've milked that rotten harness along now for over 4 years but that doesn't mean you need to. If it's bad, replace it. Even if it's not causing problems now, why wait for it. It won't be pretty when it get's you and it will be at the worst possible time too. I'm on borrowed time with mine. And it does have days where it causes me maddening fits. But at least now I know what's causing it.
It is true we do not replace anything unless we know for sure it needs to be replaced, but in this case, we now know it does so we should.   
Even if doesn't cure the issue, it wasn't wasted time or money cause it was something that needed to be done anyway.
Regards, Eric |
Again I appreciate your thoughts , but I would still prefer to cure the problem , which in my case is very slight and can be avoided by just not stomping on the gas till after 1800 RPM .
In reality if I was not an obsessive perfectionist , I could drive this car the way it is for prolly another 50K miles. Two friends of mine have already said leave it alone and drive gently till it gets either better or worse.
One of them is a very close friend of mine , my skiing buddy , and a Doctor. He thinks I am nuts obsessing about it ,and he is a Psychiatrist . Leave it alone and just drive it he says .
Not good enough for me .
I must solve this problem , but not at a $1500 or $2000 cost on a gamble .
My cousin recommended a guy named Chris who has equipment to clean out fuel injectors .
I went to see Chris.He works on all types of cars. His shop does oil changes and various other things. He was helpfull and we took the air filter housing off and he said the Fuel throttle assembly was spotless. He said it looked like it had been cleaned very recently.
I told him Joe my BenzDealer mechanic had it for a few days and changed plugs etc. and maybe had cleaned it
He said it looked like it was clean, but then sprayed some CRC Mass Air flow cleaner in it while it was running.
We looked at all the wires , vacuum lines etc., and he thought his $70 process would be a waste of money so he did not even do it. He thought MAF would cause a rough idle and not the symptoms I described , but admitted he was no Benz mechanic and recommended someone else for me to see IF I wanted to.
While we had the hood open I saw that the sensor beneath the coolant tank was not plugged in or in its bracket . Prolly from the time I had my coolant changed or one of the mechanics who has been looking in there disconnected it , to check it and forgot to reconnect it , and put it back in its proper place.
After we closed it up I took it for a ride , same thing, miss on heavy acceleration with engine over 70C .
Chris said when it is running cold , it compensates for the lean mixture by giving it more fuel, thats why it never misses/boggs when cold .
He liked the FUEL REGULATOR not working properly theory someone postulated in another forum a lot.
Willy the guy I am using now (Let me give him a name so you do not confused with the first guy (Joe dealer mechanic ) who up until today, had said it was prolly injectors ,and today changed his mind to coils, said that tomorrow he might be able to swap out a coil. It migh be injectors was his first thought. Thats after changing caps and rotors which we did already .
Chris said in his experience electrical things usually work or they dont . He thought coils was unlikely to produce my symptoms. Does anyone agree or disagree with the coils theory applying to my symptoms
It drives so dam well when past 2000 RPM etc and I had it going at 60-75 MPH today off and on for an hour. The only thing is at those speeds engine really cools down to approx 70 C so engine temp is lower,therefore the problem is eliminated ? Only runs bad when warm and pushed under load.
I dont think I know enough about sophisticated cars from working on them in my youth mostly. But the way it drives after it gets past 2000RPM is wonderful. It feels as good as when I got it with 29 K miles on it 15 years ago.
Aside from that one little glitch it performs flawlessly. Its peppy on the highway ,starts up easily even when sitting out for days in the freezing cold idles like a kitten and accelerates wonderfully by downshifting or just applying more gas , after 2000 RPM.
Chris looked at the harness and said it looked good . I find it hard to believe it is top harness.
Hopefully I will get Willy to swap out a coil tomorrow to disprove that theory.
Maybe I will order the Pressure injector and have someone else put it in since Willy doe not think its the problem . Is that an easy part to change ?
Any more creative ideas, that can tie together my symptoms, and lack of symptoms ,to eliminate things, and then be left with the only sensible deduction .
What do you think of, keep on running it hard and letting the gas run down to almost empty, like 1/8 tank and then refill with additive?
Well with luck Willy will swap out coils tomorrow and rule them either out or in , and I will either know, or the process will go on.