This is not so much a question, as more a little bit of venting.

Winter is coming in Alaska, and so I took Betsie out for her last ride this season. I like to take her on a long, relaxed highway run, because I enjoy that a lot and it's a good way to say "good bye" for six months, and also to give her a good workout before she sits unused for 6 months.

I had the cruise control set at 75mph for most of my three hour round trip, and maxed out the speedometer at 90mph on a few empty spots of highway.

Long story short: When I got back to my house I had lost all vacuum (brakes are still fine, but no door locks or engine shutoff), the last few miles of the trip she suddenly decided to take off in second gear only and would shift to 4th @ 15mph because the bowden cable became unhooked and I am hemorrhaging ATF fluid quite badly out of what appears to be the ATF cooler hose. She was pissing all over my drive way when the engine was idling.

So....I took off with a car that had no major problems and that served as my daily commuter all summer long without a single problem, and now suddenly find myself with a few projects on my hands before I can take her out next spring.

I washed and waxed her quickly, filled up the tank to the brim and added an anti-gel agent and bumped the tires up to 50psi to prevent flat spots (worked great last year). She's sitting in the garage right now without a battery. I'll take a look again come March...


Sigh....

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"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

She doesn`t want to sit all alone in the garage being neglected all winter.
She need you out there giving her some love and attention.
You know how it is with the females in our life.

Does seem strange how everything went one by one on your trip.

It`s Autumn and we got our first dusting of Snow yesterday.

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there were three HP ratings on the OM616...

1) Not much power
2) Even less power
3) Not nearly enough power!! 240D w/auto

Anyone that thinks a 240D is slow drives too fast.

80 240D Naturally Exasperated, 4-Spd 388k DD 150mph spedo 3:58 Diff

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works

Yeah, I agree...Guess she had a few near-fail components I never noticed, and they decided to all let go at around the same time.

The vacuum I didn't notice until it was time to shut the engine off, but that could have happened the beginning of the trip.
The bowden cable I fixed on the side of the road and took 10 seconds. Without it hooked up you can not really get the car going from a dead stop, unless you either shift manually or go full-throttle and hit the kickdown switch.

The leaking ATF kinda sucks. It made a mess of my drive way and garage floor, and I am not looking forward to dealing with that greasy mess. It'll be OK, I am 90% sure it is "just" the cooler hose, and not something super major and hard to fix that broke.

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

Sounds like possibly easy fixes. If a vacuum hose popped off, that might account for most problems, even some of the shifting (besides no Bowden cable). The trans cooler hoses are ~$14 ea for factory crimp type or you can substitute regular hose w/ screw clamps. Just hope it isn't the problem - "hole in steel tube eroded by hose clamp due to missing plastic isolator" (post w/ photos).

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1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

@BillGrissom
Yeah, I agree: probably all easy fixes. I've had some vacuum problems for a while now (like, since I bought her two year ago), due to brittle hoses and connectors. I should have checked that out a long time ago, but I kept putting it off and off, and other things popped up and....Well, now it's really broken.

The bowden cable was a freak occurrence that has never happened before, and was because the metal clip the cable attaches to got unhooked from the throttle assembly, probably because of some vibration I get when going 90mph. I normally never drive that fast ever.

I read up on that whole "pinhole leak due to worn bracket" thing for the trans cooler. Why would that be a bigger problem? Can that not be replaced as well?

I kinda figured you could just kinda replace the whole shebang, much like the oil cooler hoses, but I haven't researched any of it yet so I was just assuming...

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

I just happened to be reading a walk through on an affordable "fix" for that. Probably not a long term one - but would get you through a few months no doubt.

Mercedes w123 Maintenance: Its dribbling ATF!.. why and the (temporary) fix

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Andrew
Montclair, NJ
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1982 300D Turbo
120k
Petrol Blue Green

Thanks Kuene. I already came across that thread yesterday while researching "W123 leaking atf".

But instead of doing the temporary repair, why not replace the hard line? Is it that hard to get to? It can't be any worse than the oil cooler lines, can it?

I have spend absolutely nothing on Ol'Bestie all summer, since nothing actually broke! So I don't mind throwing a couple of hundred bucks at her to get this fixed properly.

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)