simultaneous electrical and cooking problem
 

turned the key on this morning in the 83 240d. in addition to the glow plug light i had the alternator, front brake pad wear sensor and parking brake light illuminated. not thinking, i ignored all these telltale signs and proceeded to leave for work thinking the gremlin responsible would 'cure itself'. well after a half mile or so of gentle driving, i noticed that the coolant temperature guage was rising unusually rapidly. after two miles or so the coolant temperature guage was reading over 100 degrees celcius. no heat coming out the vents at this time. another mile or so the temp guage was approaching 115. even the village idiot was getting concerned at this time. pulled over and noticed upon popping the hood steaming coolant streaming out the overflow tube. parked the bugger and had someone provide a ride back to the house whereupon i started the 83 300d t and drove to work. here i sit. and now you know as much as i do. what to do? simultaneous electrical and coolong problems.? the bugger worked just fine yesterday. as an aside, any advice about getting the thing back to the stable. can i drive the thing in two mile increments? allowing time for it to cool. have maybe 4 miles total to return home. or should i have it towed? thank you.

Did you take a quick look at the radiator hose to see if it was attached? Did you see any visible coolant leaks? I would tow it unless you can visibly spot and correct the problem.

hoses intact. no leaks. only flow from overflow tube.

janko,

Towing is the safest option. While driving it until the temperature is indicated at 100 and then stopping will probably work, there is a chance you have cooked the gage, and it could take you several hours. If the gage is shot, you will not know the actual temperature, which is dangerous.

What did you find under the hood. It is unusual for the fan belt to be off without some "event" to take it off. I am curious if the alternator bracket broke or the fan belt broke. In either case there is typically a little noise to go along with the event, and I have never had this happen on start up. Every time I have broken a fan belt (twice, once on a Fiat 124 Sport Spyder in BC on my way to Alaska, and once on my 1975 240D in Anchorage) the car was running and the fan belt break was very apparent to your ears. In addition, all the dash lights came on, so you could not miss the event.

Good Luck, Jim

mr. smith, did not think to check on belts. in retrospect i feel like a dummy that i did not. will do so. that would indeed tie electrical and cooling together. thank you.

This sounds exactly like what happened to me one morning on the way to work. Was it pouring rain too?:(

I didn't have the brake light on, but the engine light came on. It also started to overheat, and no heat was coming in to the cabin (I was trying to cool it down that way). My first thought was the water pump, but it turned out the fan belt had come off. Don't ask me how! It wasn't broken, just off (but chewed up). It turned out to be quite a difficult thing to get a new one on. I kept thinking the mechanics didn't know the secret Mercedes handshake or something, but from what I read on this board they ARE difficult to get on. YOu have to take the alternator right off. But, at least it's a cheap fix! Good luck...

Jassz,

You do not have to take the alternator off, at least not on a 240D. It is a nasty job but only because you have to take the airconditioning belt and then the power steering belts off first. The actual alternator belt replacement is a game compared to the other two. It comes with a bracket that has an adjusting feature built in, as does the power steering unit I believe, but you do need to know the MB "handshake" to figure out which fasteners release the mechanism to be adjusted and which do the adjusting. Jim