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  #1  
Old 09-11-2008, 12:28 AM
TylerH860's Avatar
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Easy Repair...Reversing "Southern" Engineering Part II

The previous owner of Ol' Turbo seemed like a pretty nice guy, certainly a hardcore DIY-er. My car spent almost all its life in Texas with the original owner, and some time with a fellow in Western Colorado as a summer driver. With no Benz dealership or parts yards, he seemed to improvise with what he had.

The first redneck engineered item the rear its ugly head was the oil cooler line. Some of you may remember that incident...


Rather than replace the oil cooler lines and motor mounts that caused the initial failure, he chose to rig a high pressure "tractor hose" (as he put it) instead.

Now for Part II:

I always had this little noise that was barely noticeable, a brief metallic sounding vibration when slightly above idle. I posted a thread about it in December, here: Another game of name that tune

I figured out later it was the air cleaner, but didn't understand why until I pulled the air cleaner on Norm to mess with the Servo. Good Ol' Normy had 3 nice looking little rubber mounts attached by Nuts. Ol' Turbo's air cleaner, on the other hand, was attached via screws directly to the metal bracket.

Why these rubbers were removed and replaced I will never know, but a short trip to my friends salvage yard, and 15 minutes of work resulted in a quieter ride, at all RPMs. I didn't know any better before, figuring that's how they're supposed to sound.

Hopefully this is the last Southern engineered part I find.

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Easy Repair...Reversing "Southern" Engineering Part II-oil-line-blown_1.jpg  
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Last edited by whunter; 02-15-2011 at 02:15 AM. Reason: attached picture
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  #2  
Old 09-11-2008, 12:34 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TylerH860 View Post

Hopefully this is the last Southern engineered part I find.
Don't count on it!

BTW, you refer to Southern Engineering as if it's a bad thing........
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  #3  
Old 09-11-2008, 12:35 AM
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The air cleaner bracket on mine was broken, and the cleaner was held on to what was left by long #10 screws. It rattled ferociously! Now to get around to cutting off the oversize muffler clamp that is buzzing around under the passenger foot well!
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Old 09-11-2008, 12:50 AM
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The amount of "idiot repairs" (as I call them) we've found on our project SD and the two engines (both the dead engine as well as the donor) is astounding.....I could make a whole list of all the stuff that was hacked that we've had to fix. In my thread about that car I will try to list them all when we are done.
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  #5  
Old 09-11-2008, 01:18 AM
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I've made a few "idiot repairs" on my car, but not on things as necessary as an oil cooler line. I broke the stud on the oil canister by tightening it too much. Stuck an 8mm bolt in there and had in on for a few oil changes until I ordered the stud.

I got lazy putting in new speakers. I just twisted wires together and covered them in electrical tape. For the head unit I did soldering and shrink wrapping though.

I broke the plastic mounting tabs off one of the vacuum diaphragms behind the glove box. I put about 3 zipties to secure it to the metal mounting plate and it hasn't budged.

The back speakers aren't secured to anything. Why? I didn't want to drill the parcel shelf and the holes for speakers didn't line up.

My car is a native St. Louis car (The Redneck Riviera) and I'm surprised isn't any southern engineering on the car besides my lazy engineering.
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  #6  
Old 09-11-2008, 03:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by derburger View Post

I got lazy putting in new speakers. I just twisted wires together and covered them in electrical tape. For the head unit I did soldering and shrink wrapping though.

wire crimps!


seriously, takes like 2 seconds. A 25 pack of them is like 3 bucks.
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  #7  
Old 09-11-2008, 04:48 AM
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Thumbs up WTF...no Duct Tape???

Folks,

It ain't Southun Engineerin' unless it involves "Duck Tape"......

SB
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  #8  
Old 09-11-2008, 08:23 AM
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Well, I don't know about Southern Eengineering, but some ham-fisted PO of my 240D thought the guages were reached by prying off the clear cluster cover. His many attempts to refasten it has resulted in the original cluster being so melted, and contaminated with diffrent glues and silicones that nothing will repair it now. A used, but un-pryed, replacement cluster housing now awaits my getting around to it.

Happy Motoring, Mark
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Old 09-11-2008, 08:28 AM
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I twisted and did electrical tape for my speaker/headunit wiring too, its been working fine for years.

Most everything else on my car is normal/factory spec installation.

On our 300D I ran a ground wire to the blower sensor circuit because the $70 cut out switch failed....no way are we paying for that, we'll just ground it out.
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'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
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  #10  
Old 09-11-2008, 10:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TylerH860 View Post

The first redneck engineered item the rear its ugly head was the oil cooler line. Some of you may remember that incident...

...Hopefully this is the last Southern engineered part I find.
'Round these parts we call that Swamp Yankee Engineering. Not named for me but I've been know to use the technique from time to time.

I used to have a habit of performing temporary fixes to get by until I had the time and money to do it right. That usually transformed into a variation of the old adage (If it ain't broke...), "If it's working, don't F with it."

Those days are fairly long gone. For the most part.
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Old 09-11-2008, 10:32 AM
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Tyler, as a proud native Texan, I think you should refer to those modifications as Texan engineering....or even better, a native would call them Aggie (from Tx A&M) "improvements"

I think Southern engineering begins and ends with a roll of duct tape.



P.S. Mrs. Zeke was very touched by your compliment in the other thread (Chad's new coupe), but said that you are too young to get married.....We both have no doubt you will find a spectacular wife, but in the mean time....be a love machine!
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  #12  
Old 09-11-2008, 11:39 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zeke View Post
Tyler, as a proud native Texan, I think you should refer to those modifications as Texan engineering....or even better, a native would call them Aggie (from Tx A&M) "improvements"
Really, I thought that was Longhorn Engineering...
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Old 09-12-2008, 03:17 AM
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Ahh, that would be Egyptian Engineering. Almost alliteration .......
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  #14  
Old 09-12-2008, 10:42 AM
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Southern Engineering, I Love It!

My late grandfather was a master at "southern engineering". He was a talented mechanic, plumber, and welder. After he passed away in 2001 my father and I cleaned out his old shop. I do wish that my father had not thrown that set of brand new '56 Impala armrests into the trash fire while we were cleaning.

We rummaged through copies of old invoices for work he had done for customers dating back to the late forties. What was so amusing to me were the numerous homemade tools he had lying around. I would ask my dad, "What's this?" and dad would rattle off some story about how my grandfather used that particular tool to do this that or the other.

In my grandfather's last 25 years he stopped working on cars and settled in on small engine repair. My brother and I played for hours in the "scrap yard" of old mowers. Our grandfather built us some pretty neat tractors and we tore up our fair share of property with them. He was a very creative man.

He passed the "southern engineering gene" on to me. People laugh at me when I tell them how I engineered some fixes for my MB. Those that knew my grandfather say, "That's sounds just like Calvin".

Kevin
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  #15  
Old 09-12-2008, 10:56 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pawoSD View Post
I twisted and did electrical tape for my speaker/headunit wiring too, its been working fine for years.
the factory, get this, factory wiring harness in my delorean is nothing but wires and electrical tape.. I cannot figure out which is factory and which has been hacked in because of the copious amount of electrical tape

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