Well my 83 has been running much warmer than I'd like it to lately and warming up at the oddest times, the amount it warms up at idle or while driving 35mph keeps me watching the radiator. It was getting to the point when I shut the car down I'd kick the heat onto max to bleed out some of the heat. I seen there was a little bit of dirt on the radiator, big deal right? What I didn't see was that the vast majority of the radiator was clogged full of dirt and small road debris. It is very hard to see the radiator behind the condensor, but the condensor looked perfectly clean the radiator should to right? Wrong! While it still never hit 100*C it got very close yesterday so I figured I'd go ahead and clean it out.

I'd estimate I had about 35% of original efficency left, now I'm probably upto 65% but would be willing to settle for 80% if I could get a better method of cleaning. I just spent the last hour or so cleaning it out, while it is much better I still need a better method. I just used a air nozzle with a hose on it to clean out where the nozzle itself couldn't reach. I can still see dirt on the lower portions of the radiator and am wondering would a power washer work much better or will the condensor kill so much of the pressure and flow that it'd be a waste of time?

One more (nonrelated) question that comes to mind is can the fuel return hoses be reused at all? Mine only have about 5k miles of use on them and after reinstalling the injectors every single injector seems to be leaking at the top somewhere even though the line seems to be at about the proper torque.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k