^^^ Sorry to hear about your close encounter, hope you can fix it cheap.
I had some better weather today so I decided to replace the marker light socket. $21 at the dealership, $13 on line but I didn't want to wait
Besides I was there this morning doing the alignment. Dealer had quoted me $240 over the phone. 4 wheel alignment ended up being $128 tax inlcuded. Very happy about that, plus the front and rear suspension/steering components checked out good.

Here is the bulb socket repair, 10 minutes later, as good as new

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W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Another righteous victory for DIY! Your car thanks you, sir. I wonder why that first socket went out, though? Any signs of what happened or is it just one of those things?

Careful shopping netted me a used, OEM taillight lens for $55 dollars including shipping. The condition is excellent. I'm all smug about that right now just because it sparkles so nicely in the sunlight. Touchup paint is just gonna have to wait until some nice spring day in the future...time to find that paint code, I guess.

Since I was not able to obtain any written info from the independent mechanic that was servicing my car before I purchased it, I decided to do all the fluid changes. I begun today with the following:
-Oil change
-Fuel filter
-Air Filter
-Cabin air filter

I had been smelling a rather strong diesel smell around the front of the car for the last two weeks, but since I was already prepping to do the service, I figured I'd wait to look into it. Quite a surprise, I found a major leak from the fuel lines going into and coming from the filter. I don't know if it was due to a bad clamp but the fuel was puddling both on the filter top and the belly pan.







After installing new filter and clamps, I used my handy dandy hand pump to prime. Engine started on the first crank with no hesitation



Cabin Air Filter



Air filter







Oil change





At the end of the day, aside from the cold weather, my only complain was a filthy engine bay. I guess I shouldn't expect much in this regard from a 75 yearold guy, but I was very surprised to see how much filth there was under the plactic covers. Maybe I am too anal with my cars and for now this one will have to wait for better weather. I took some time to clean what I could today as I was doing the service, luckily this will be a once a year thing so once I have the engine bay looking the way I want to, all I'll have to do is maintain it.

Much cleaner engine bay, still a long way to go



To do list:
-SBC system bleed (scheduled at local MB for feb 19th)
-Transmission service (waiting for nicer weather)
-Rear differential fluid replacement (to be done with transmission)
-Engine coolant

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

I'm wondering how it got that filthy under there in so few of miles too. Geez! It almost looks like it was driven only on dirt and gravel roads, to get that aged looking and filthy with grit, grime, dusty and discolored/tarnishing metal - probably from winter salt/chemicals on the roads. My car looks night and day different under it's hood and cowling covers. Guess I'm either lucky or because it was cared for differently and perhaps only driven in Texas.

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

FYI you don't need to manually prime the fuel filter like you do on the earlier engines, the CDI's have in tank electrical fuel pumps. All you need to do is install the filter and turn on the ignition for 30 seconds before starting. And your engine will start on the first compression cycle

Just another reason why the CDI is better than a 240d.

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (137K)
13 GLK250 (157k)
06 E320CDI (341K)
16 C300 (89K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

Yep, not everyone cleans and cares for cars as some others do, of course salt and such does not help either. A car driven in NJ for 69k miles vs a car driven in dry weather will most definetly show a difference. I clean my Tundra's engine compartment as well as I did my Ram since new, but some metal components still discolor no mater what, and one can only be so crazy about cleaning. Some TLC stating this spring should bring it back to normal, but yes, I agree with you, it is unacceptable behavior. Some owners will go tens of thousands of miles without ever opening the hood on tier vehicles.


Didnt know that, thanks.
My 06 Ram had to be bled after filter replacement or it would have to crank a few times to fill the filter so I used the hand pump to avoid the strain on the batteries. Different designed I guess.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Actually, the '06 Ram does not have to be primed either. Just bump the starter without starting the engine and the fuel pump will continue to run for a short time. If you start the engine the first time out, it will momentarily run out of fuel.

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'83 300D, 126K miles.

Those leaks are kind of perplexing. I assume your fuel system pressure is fine. The hoses surely are too new to have rotting issues, which kind of only leaves the clamps. And hey, nice watch!



Yep, if you love to replace sensors, a 616 is a really bad engine.

I will be using this thread to log all maintenance and repairs/ improvements made to the car since day one. It may become boring for some, please bear with me. Any and all advise throughout is apreciated.

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"

Cool!

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

If you weren't SOLD on the 05 CDI E320 sedan before reading this, you may want to view this......

Dateline: Laredo, Texas - May 2005

Enjoy!

World 100,000 mile record: 140 mph for 30 days averaging 40 mpg

OR, THIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNIYgrzK-c

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

I believe the dealy-bob on the trunk lid IS the Sirius antenna according to this and THIS[/I][/I] I stumbled upon that info about a month ago while I was researching the W210 CDI heavily, trying to educate myself prior the purchase. Not a chance on a CB antenna being that small, that'll never happen. As far as the color, you are correct, I checked the Russian Vin decoder and the color is 747U Perlite Gray Metallic

Yes, that's what I meant. I had never seen this color on a MB before. I guess it is not that popular around the north east or at least not by me
That's what I thought when I first stood by the car, until I opened the trunk, hood, moved carpets around and saw the same color everywhere
YES!!! I have seen them both. Very impressive

My CDI came to me with a cracked inner door sill and a rip on the bottom part of the cloth on the door pillar which seems to be somewhat common for this model.
So day three of ownership I went to my local upholstery shop where I've had some work done on my boat in the past (top quality place and OK on prices) in hopes that they could take care of that problem.
They told me "at least $250" but it could go up depending on the cost of the cloth and wether they could match it exactly.
So from there I put on my steel pants and headed to my local MB dealer, gave them the VIN # and to my surprise they said $150 plus tax I could not believe my ears, so I asked the guy to show me the part on the computer just to make sure we were talking about the same part. WOW, the whole fabric covered plastic piece from ceiling to floor brand new exact match for a bill and a half, $100 cheaper than a repair job.
I picked it up this morning along with the plastic inner sill which was cheaper than an eBay salvage part.
So I guess that at least for some parts the dealer is not as bad as I thought it would be. I hope to install these parts later on or tomorrow morning. That would make the interior near perfect. Now I just have to wait for the all-weather mats I ordered from fleabay... starting to wonder if I should have order them from the dealer

__________________
W211 B-PILLAR TRIM PANEL REPLACEMENT
My Continental Tire Experience

By Land:
2005 E320 CDI (Unnamed as of yet)
2011 Toyota Tundra DC limited 4x4 "Big Red"
1965 euro import VW Beetle "Mojo"
By Sea:
22' Grady White Seafarer "SeaSun Pass"