So today started with me packing up because it was the end of the school term and well, we couldn't stay at the good ol' Sigma Chi Fraternity house. even if we wanted too. I had bought my Benz at begining of this term (December sounds about right) and I had replaced the motor with a salvage yard motor with 85k on it and managed to get it running again. I had taken it around town a few times just because I was sooo excited that it was running (wouldn't you?). But being move out day, I had to move all my stuff back to my aunts house, using my primary driver for one load ('99 Blazer) and then my aunt drop me off so I could pick up the Benz, tools, and random parts that I had laying around.

Ok wait, lets back up till Friday. I was driving to Southbend Indiana to visit my girl, and 50 miles away my CEL on the Blazer comes up and says "hi, you should check out your engine, dude." It was misfiring a lil, but I had the vitals ( 40psi oil, 190 collant) so I figured it could wait. I come up to the toll booth though, and finally hear whats going on. Notice I used "hear." That is never a good sign when diagnosing an engine. It is like when you sister cooks dinner for the first time: not good. So I pull into my g/f's appartment, and it sounds pretty wicked. I will later on narrow it down to valve train related (my guess, a lifter. pulling valve covers tommorow for confirmation)

But anyhow, no doubt against what anyone else here would do, I took the 180 mile treck to Livonia the following day, and then drove to back to Flint later that night, only to drive to Oxford today, as I was talking about earlyer today. I am evil to you Mr. Blazer, I know, but I am way to cheap to have you towed. Suck it up.

So, to the Mercedes related part of this. I had conciderable faith in my Benz at this point in time because, well, my 7 year old car let me down, and I was sad. But we're diesel baby, and thats what its about. There have been may a night where I have been partying all day long, and thought to myself, "I am like a diesel Benz baby, I just keep going."

(side note (and not really related to anything): we had some german interns from uncle bob (bosch) come out to one of our parties this term, and they LOVED the Benz. "Wow, 3.0L is such a big engine!"(intern), (me) "you would have loved the 60's cars, kid")

OK, so back to the Benzo. Maiden Voyage. Right.

Actually, let me ask a question: how many hours does it take to get from Flint Michigan to Oxford Michigan? The answer is 6. Actually it's closer to 45 min normally, but today was my maiden voyage, so lets get to the moral of the story.

My Mercedes has been sitting around for a while because I have been really busy with school, and havn't had much time to mess with it. So when I went to start it today, it was no surprise that I needed a jump to start it. I was surprised however that it wouldn't turn over after letting it idle for half an hour, but I disregarded this. And at this point we are somewhat where we started in my story, you know, talking about my aunt dropping me off at "the house" so I could pick up the ultimate mullet machine (ok, maybe not mullets, but it definatly screams "I love the 80's" all over it. I suddenly have visions of a certain video by White Snake.... To bad it was Jag's...)

So she takes off and I am left with myself, and I have to get the beast going. Luckily I had my jumper box, and could get it lit off fairly easily. And were off...

So this is the first time EVER having it out on the highway. I was scared to be quite honest with you because I had never driven the car for more than 15 min at a time before, so it was pretty unproven so far. But I was immediatly impressed with the auto. The ride of this car is amazing, and the engine tones are to die for. (for us diesel guys anyway )

So all is going well, all the vitals look good (3bar oil, 80 coolant. God, I love the metric system, no joke.) This car is amazing. I was a wonderful 50 some degrees in Michigan, and I am going to take every advantage of it, so the windows are down, the sunroof is open, and the radio is playing the tunes.

My dad is works for UPS, and he trains alot of the drivers, so he knows a thing or two about a thing or two. One of the best things he tought me was to keep your eyes moving, and to check you gauges occasionally in this eye sweep. Well I happend to check my gauges, and I tested negative. No wait. What I ment to say was my oil pressure did not exist. Oh no...

So my thought is, "I need to pull over right away!" then I think, "no, not on the side of the highway, people get hit by cars and stuff there. NOT COOL!" So I scout out the first exit I see. "Dort Hwy." I will be safer on the side of the Highway (this is more of a joke for the Michiganders who know of Dort Hwy. and its lovely ladies of the night) So I take the next exit, and pull into a Verison Wireless parking lot. I feel welcome. "I have a Verison Phone, they will let me do whatever I want!"

Keeping in mind my battery was week early on today, I decided against turing off my vehicle by pushing the magical "stop" bar on the side of my engine (havn't fixed the ignition switch yet...) So, I decided "if I have no oil pressure, maybe I have no oil!" So I keep the kitten puring, without checking the level, I added some more oil. Well actually, a gallon of Rottela to be exact. Feeling better about adding oil to his car (as any man should) I was getting ready to do the victorious closing of the hood. But as I was about to push a hood of yellowie goodness over top of my tribute to Rudolph, I noticed a stream of water. No, wait. Thats not water. That is oil!!!!!!!!!!!

Come to find out, my oil drain plug had vanished on me like Whodiny (I spelled that terrribly wrong, but your smart, you can figure it out.) So I spent several hours for someone to come and get me, and then we went to find a repplacement drain plug. My guess is that the drain plug is a M12x1.50 because 1.25 and 1.75 were not cooperating with the matter at hand.

This is where you really begin to think. How creative are you? I got creative, some what. Square peg, round hole; 1.75mm pitch hold, 1.50mm pitch hole. So I managed to cross thread a bolt to the point where I could stop the oil leak. And it was good. Something I could fix at my convienence was the way I seen it.

So I get a jump from Bill and then I am on my way back home. It is about six o clock now, and it is starting to get Dark. But it's ok, I am on my way.

It is ok, that is, untill every other person is flashing their lights at me to turn on my lights. My lights are are on. My alternator is not working! So i have to call up my aunt, ask her to come to me so I can carge my battery, and get going. Things go welll actuallly, she came up, charged my battery , got back home, and it ends up that it took 6 hours to travel less than 50 miles.

The bad: my luck. The Good: the Benz seems to be holding oil right now, and it made it home.

The real moral of the story: Brockly equals good

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Love the Bob!

Count that day as one of your luckiest. Loosing an oil pan plug on a highway at speed with any engine that did not have a low oil shutoff should have resulted in a loss of the replacement engine. You were really,really lucky.