Hey folks,

First of all, just a thank you to those who went out of there way to help me with an electrical gremlin. Kestas, sixto, ctaylor738.... your advice was "dead" on. Should find out today if the car has any battery issues (what used to happen was I'd go to work and find a slightly drained battery when they let me out, we'll see today...), but I had suspected something with the central locking system drawing juice when the car was off, hooked up my new $19 multimeter and disconnected the neg term as per the advice saw (ok here is where I start to look like a loser but so it goes) saw current being drawn, the reading was 20 with the multimeter setting in 200M and I think it was 2 at 20M setting. Anyway... went right to fuse 12 which is for central locking sys, pulled went around car, and the mystery was solved, no current being drawn.

OK, next question, under the car (85 190e 2.3 aotuomatic T) there are two hoses that look pretty cracked and they are leaking. They are dripping something that is oily although they basically go to the radiator. These two lines are like brake lines, not metal, they are surrounded/protected by a spring like jobby, and they run from the radiator under the car to solid steel lines. From reading my little Haynes manual, it looks like they are automatic transmission fluid cooling lines. Here's the question, I should probably change this fluid (at the very least I'll check the level tonight, I was too happy after my fuse success to stop setting off fireworks and running through the streets singing...) but can't I just take out these hoses (which will probably result in complete transmission fluid loss in the car) replace with new hoses and fill her up through the dipstick in the top of the engine (aka avoiding whole raising cah dealing with other bolts that are not leaking...) I mean this is an old car, I don't want to touch anything that's not broken. The only reason I hesitate is because the manual makes such a big deal about doing this in a BL2 lab, I mean a really clean place. And is this fluid like brake fluid where I have to be careful how I replace the fluid... or more like oil where you dump it in and slop a little on the engine without a care in the world. I don't know enough about basic does and don't and am looking for a little advice on this one.


Thanks again for the help,
CDT