Hey Doofus sorry I didn’t respond to your PM. I’ve been working on my car non stop for the last couple of days. I used shoo goo. I scraped off the POs hot glue gun job with a Swiss Army knife. Then I smeared the glue on thinly with a gloved finger. The trick is to keep spreading and rubbing it into the surface so it picks up the loose dust and mixes it into the glue. It kind of cleans the surface and gives a good bond. I’m careful not to use too much glue. I’ve had some serious runs on my other cars when using the stuff. It’ll ruin the interior.

My latest fixes:

I fixed my wiper that wouldn’t flap. I feel like kind of an idiot because I bought a wiper regulator from LKQ and I didn’t need it. I thought one of the internal joints had broken loose but it turned out to be a loose nut. Well, $14 and I have a spare. These things are getting hard to buy. Looks like the one in my SD. I wonder if they’re interchangeable.

Fixed the windshield washer. Hose was unhooked.

Fixed the wiper speed control on the combo switch. I think the P.O. got his food all in the switch. Gravy running down the shaft. I rotated the wiper speed back and forth a dozen times and it started working. Before I only had intermittent wipers. Still stuck on hi beams tho.

New front brake pads. The warning light was on. Silly P.O. just kept driving. The genius topped up the brake fluid too because it overflowed as I compressed the pistons.

Finally the biggie. I have always heard this horrible metal on metal chafing noise in front of the engine. It has gotten worse. I started to get worried thinking it was number 1’s bearing. But it sounded like accessory noise. Alternator or water pump. AC isn’t hooked up. Well, I tore it down and spun the water pump and it ground. I had noticed the water pump pulley wobbling a bit yesterday so I had immediately ordered a pump.

Then I got to thinking. Spin the unhooked AC. Yep grinding. P.O. must have cut the belt to get the noise to stop.

Sure enough the water pump bearing was really dead and it had tons of runout. I looked at one of the old receipts. The pump was changed at the stealership for $350 four years ago. $250 of which was the pump. I’d think an OE would have done better than four years and only ten thousand miles.

I put in a $30 GMB and it sounds great now. No more scary grinding and barking noises at random frequencies.

Ok that’s it. Time to get some rest. And some Advil.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles