getting my cd right and going again - hand crank first? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

JHZR2 · #1 01-19-2015, 02:30 PM

My 82 300cd is a gem. But due to having a baby and a substantial amount of work, I put it in the garage and haven't driven it in a while. A while being over two years.

There are a few things I intend to get taken care of...

Front oddball tire wear. Consistent with other w123 cars I've had and never solved on any of them. I plan to fully re-baseline the front end with all new parts. But any thoughts on the cause? The oddity is that the leading edge of the outer tread block wears less than the back edge of the tread block. Tough to see here, but I've run these tires on these cars for hundreds of thousands of miles and have seen this...

Air conditioning. Original R-12, blew cold and never needed to top up when I was using the car regularly. Now there's no pressure. Finding the leak will be the issue. I have a pump, gauges, cfc detector and R-12. I'm sort of tempted to leak check with an HC refrigerant (and just a splash of R-12) since the car won't leave my driveway. Thoughts?

Rear windows: got one side done, never started the other. Had an alignment issue in the ds window stop that foiled me for years. Turned out the window stop was upside down. Now I need to do the othe side rear regulator and bend and lube everything up. Any new updates on these? I love the rears down but don't care to fix them ever again.

Starting the car up - battery has been on float maintainer and is 100% fine. But should I hand crank the engine first? If so, how many times?

Thanks!

BillGrissom · #2 01-19-2015, 02:45 PM

It wouldn't hurt to turn it over by hand 2 revs to insure it turns freely, i.e. no rusted rings or water-filled cylinder. Otherwise, you might damage the starter or flywheel teeth.

I haven't noticed any pattern to tire wear in my two W123 cars. The outer edge wearing is most likely from excessive toe-in. Lay a straight-edge along each front tire and sight at the rears. With steering centered, you should sight ~1" off the rear (slight toe-in). You can also measure w/ a tape measure across aft and fwd track of front tires & subtract.

Could also be from excessive "postive camber" (tires leaning outward at top), but usually takes extreme camber to get wear. More a problem with currently fashionable low-profile tires and cars that purposely set much negative camber for better cornering.

leathermang · #3 01-19-2015, 02:52 PM

While you may need new parts in the suspension...
that scuffing and wear pattern on the out side is shown in the FSM as normal... There are two ' chassis ' manuals for your car... one of them has pictures of wear patterns and probable cause....
If that was what you were referring to... it looks like you have wear in the center also... which typically would be overinflation.. but hard to tell in photos....

JHZR2 · #4 01-19-2015, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leathermang

While you may need new parts in the suspension...
that scuffing and wear pattern on the out side is shown in the FSM as normal... There are two ' chassis ' manuals for your car... one of them has pictures of wear patterns and probable cause....
If that was what you were referring to... it looks like you have wear in the center also... which typically would be overinflation.. but hard to tell in photos....

I'll have to check the FSM pictures, thanks! ALL my w123 '300' cars have done this... Always thought it might be LCAs... Always had alignments done at the dealer.

My 240d, interestingly enough, with the same tires, never seemed to do it.

I do run TP high.

I now have cooper cs4 on the 240d, and have some 15" of the same to put on my chrome 15" bundts. The ones I show here:

Clearcoated Chrome 15" MB Bundt Wheels

Yes, I've been delaying since then. No time.

vstech · #5 01-19-2015, 06:49 PM

27mm socket on a 3" extension will fit and clear the fan shroud.
Let us know what it does!

JHZR2 · #6 01-19-2015, 09:03 PM

I know it will start up and run perfect. It does have a slightly loping hot idle, not sure why no fixes have fixed it. But it has, and will (knock on wood) run beautifully.

Maybe I'll drive it down to your place in NC to get all the work done

Skippy · #7 01-19-2015, 09:52 PM

I get a similar wear pattern on mine. I attribute it to the way I drive not being compatible with the factory static alignment settings. More negative camber should help. It would probably also take some understeer out of the car, but I get the handling I want with tire pressures, 40 F/38 R. In my case the tire wear isn't bad enough to make me spring for another alignment.

My driving style kind of looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75_hIBU_Zmg

rscurtis · #8 01-20-2015, 09:34 AM

Check the toe- they're toed in too much.

vstech · #9 01-20-2015, 09:50 AM

when the outer tires start doing that, I notice that the upper control arm bushings, and ball joints are worn/failing.

if you can LEAVE the car with me for a good amount of time, feel free to bring it down, but I mean MONTHS...
I'll soon have every tool to update every part of the suspension on these cars...