Worthless DIY Repairs
 

Anyone want to share any stories regarding time spent painstakingly replacing, refurbishing or installing a component...only to find that it did NOTHING to improve the performance or alleviate the original problem!

Last night I spent the evening removing the brake pads sets on all 4 wheels of the W124 and liberally applied brake paste in order to quell the annoying squeal I have lived with for months...a brisk test drive and continued brake squeal only served to demonstrate that I wasted my time! :mad:

So I pulled the car in and decided to replace the ambient temp sensor cable I had sitting around that I never installed since I ordered it about a year ago. Carefully disconnected the old cable and unrouted it through the winding paths of the engine compartment, and routed the new one through the same path and back to the fuse box, where I soldered the new leads, clipped them back into the fusible link and reattached.

Temp indicator still reads with the same inaccuracy! :mad:

So there went an evening of wasted repairs!

Anybody else gone through this?

Nope ....[bg]

I recently replaced a window regulator, then realized that the problem was broken wires in the rubber boot at the doorjamb. :(

Not such a big deal, since I hadn't put the door back together yet, and the inner panel and plastic moisture barrier need to come off anyway to fix the wiring... except that I HATE getting W124 window regulators in and out. It's like trying to maneuver a sofa up a flight of stairs, plus you get to cut your hand on all the sharp edges in there. :rolleyes:

G-Benz I had a similar experience with my brakes. My rears kept squeeling. I bought new rotors, new pads, even bought new pins and new backing spring and spent a beautiful afternoon changing the rear brakes. Used lots of paste and used regular OE pads. No DICE! :mad: Squeel returned. And I could have been at the beach.

By the way my rear brakes finally stopped squeeling after I bought wagner brake shims from www.********.com They cost $5. Wafer thin alloy shims that fit between the pads and inside caliper face. They also sell a front set.

I think the chronic squeel on W124's with correct OE/OE-like pads has to do with the age of the calipers, this is just a guess, my front ones use to squeel until I replaced them with rebuilt units.

Wheel bearing noise
 

Had a "wheel bearing" type noise from the rear left that was intermittent. When making hard right turns, it was almost guaranteed to appear.. also appeared sometimes when going straight or curving to the right on the highway. Figured it had to be the left rear wheel bearing.

Dropped it off at the mechanic for his expert advice. He couldn't find anything wrong with the car so said our only shot was to change the wheel bearing. Replaced it and showed me the old one. Old one looked *brand new* at 200k mi! Problem went away for a week and reappeared...

I gave up! Decided to drive the car until either the problem got worse (and more obvious!) or went away (which it never did..)

A year later, I changed the diff fluid and put in synthetic. Problem went away immediately and never came back. Even 2 years later, it's completely silent. Noise is gone and so is the $$$ I paid to replace the "good" wheel bearing!

Neal

Replaced fuel sender. Still have intermittent gauge. Hate when that happens.

Replaced the Fuel Pressure Regulator, Fuel Filter, OVP to correct a rough idle and to no avail, fixed it by other means! Replaced a Kickdown Solenoid on the tranny only to find out the wire was broken in the connector! I have spent almost a few hundred bucks on parts that I did not really need! Basically all I got was peace of mind that these parts will not be replaced in the near future! Replace the fuel gauge cluster because it would not go to Full, now it bounces all around once past 1/2 tank! Tach cluster to replace a bad clock, other one worked for a few days then died and now the tach bounces when shifting! **** I have broken old sensors and had to get new to fix, then broken the new because everything is so close and one slip of the wrench even the slightest breaks the damn things! I curse out the German who designed the W201 oh so often!!!!:D

30 years ago, I bought a 67 Austin Healey Sprite blowing LOTS of smoke. Owner told me it had been diagnosed with a bad head gasket. I concurred and bought it. Replaced the head gasket (twice). Made no difference. Decided rings were bad. Rebuilt the engine (twice). Made no difference. My wife found me in a state of despair sitting beside the car with huge clouds of white smoke billowing out the back. She said, "Looks like it needs some kind of pollution control device." Those words spurred a new thought. I reached under the hood and pulled off the PCV hose. Problem solved immediately. It had been sucking oil directly into the intake manifold via a bad PCV valve.

when going over hard bumps in the road i heard something ratling loose in the passenger door. took the door panel off and found a screw and a bolt laying on the bottom of the door frame. looked all around and found where they came from, noticed that the window was now nice and tight. put everything back together. drove over bumps and the noise is still there. tried to localize it, definitely coming from the passenger door. then a thought occured, it may be coming from under the convertible top lid. openned it and found some of the top bows have room to clank around in there. put some towels in there to eliminate...drove around...noise is still there. in a "eureka" moment i decided to look in the glove box.. ahah! loose junk rattling around in there. took it out. drove around. still have the noise. now i think it may be the passenger door is not snug up against the body when closed. looked for and adjustment but not sure yet how to go about it.

tan man,

Try applying masking tape to areas you think are rattling (metal against metal) or padding them somehow. One trick I have used with loose/misaligned doors is to shut them with a towel in the opening to "cushion" the two parts. If the rattle goes away, you know it's the mating of those two parts. I find that thin towels like shop rags work better than thick ones.

Neal

This isn't a reply to the thread specifically, but I just couldn't help but reply to "Kerry Edwards".....man, I don't envy you with that moniker at this particular point in time! You might consider some kind of disclaimer after your name :rolleyes:

Door adjustment is not obvious but it's very easy. Think about it for a minute. How could anyone on an assembly line install a door and have it fit perfectly if there is not a way to adjust it up, down and sideways. Here is how I do it. Put a few inches of masking tape on the body at the top and bottom and leading edge of the door strike. This will provide a reference for the present location of the strike. Loosen the 2 screws that secure the strike to the body, but keep them snug. Move the strike inwards about 1/16" by tapping the strike easily with the wrench. Take care to keep the strike horizonatlly aligned by referencing it's location relative to the masking tape. Tighten the bolts, leave the tape in place, and drive off; listen for the sound. If absent, then you solved the problem, and you can remove the tape. If it persists, then again try moving the strike inward a very little bit. If this dosen't work, then look elsewhere for the noise.

Good Luck,
Mark

Real technicians know better than to work on their own cars (bg). One's own car will always bite one. I haven't worked on my own car in 20 years.

But I can remember one time when I was about twenty I broke down while cruisin Miami Beach one night. I had a 56 Chevy and my dad had bought me a 350hp 327 crate motor for my graduation from highschool. It was a deal, we lived in Seattle and I got the motor if I drove the car to Florida after graduation. My dad knew if he got my car to Florida I would eventually stay (he worked fro UAL and I flew back and forth to Seattle from Miami numerous times in the next few years,13 bucks 1st class space available of course, even worked for Boeing one summer but my car was still in Miami and dad was right).

Anyway, that motor screamed and over the years I tore up atleast 20 differentials; the original 56 unit just couldn't take it. My Muncy four speed never wimpered. So we went, hitched a ride 40 miles south, to another car and a spare diff and off we went. Had that diff in by about 4:00AM and off we go only to find out that the problem still existed. I don't remember whether we actually fixed it there; been a long time but it turned out to be a front wheel bearing totally failed.

Okay you techs out there, you've used "(bg)" in your replies...what the heck does THAT mean?

Ah ...yes , the BG mystery..
BG is for BIG GRIN ..as an expression of Humor..
...and we all know this post will come with many,many humorous stories ...propably go on forever...[bg]

Replaced a leaking water pump earlier this year, only to find, much to my chagrin, that the new one appeared to be leaking as well. Took it all apart a second time, to discover that the water pump seal was pristine, and showed no evidence of a leak.

Turned out it was leaking from a loose radiator hose.

Anthonyb, I really feel for you. Those water pumps are a real PITA to replace.

Replaced all 4 of my shocks when I installed lowering springs. Biggest waste of $320. I didn't notice a difference at all. I probably could have gotten away with using my stock springs.

Another was installing a "Center-Force" clutch plate. Again I didn't notice a difference (except for my wallet being a lighter)

Lastly tires. Other than looks, I don't notice any difference in performance.

Sometimes I'll replace something if I read about a high failure rate in some forum or other. It saves me the headache of fixing whatever it is when it breaks.

Resoldering fuel pump relays for one. Plastic/aluminum radiators for another.

Replaced the MAF sensor for the check engine light, only to find that it was the ECU.

Replaced the AC control unit to solve intermittent hot air, looks like its the monovalve.

Not a car problem but one I came across several years ago while at a customer’s office. When doing a tape backup, not only would the backup stop at a certain point, but the tape drive would cause the computer to reboot. I worked with Microsoft support, Dell support, even the tape drive vendor’s support. We could duplicate the problem 100% of the time. Along the way, I replaced the tape drive, the tape drive cable, the SCSI host adapter for the tape drive, the system board, the computer's back plane, the power supply the cooling fans, even the video display card and ultimately the hard drive, and the network interface card. Still the problem persisted. Microsoft gave up. Dell gave up. I gave up using the tape drive and had the customer buy another hard drive, put it on a different machine and simply copied data from the problematic machine to the other one. Problem was side stepped.

A little more than a year later I was talking with someone at MS support about a different topic, and mentioned the previous one, and said it was never solved. He did some research and found a case with a similar operating system where a pipe “|” character in a file name caused a similar problem. I went to the customer’s office the next day and looked for a file with a pipe character as part of the file’s name. Sure enough, in a directory with over a thousand files on it, one file had a pipe character. I renamed the file to remove the character, duplicated the test, and the problem was solved. I renamed the file again and put the pipe character back and the problem resumed. That was it! Never did get an explanation why this caused the failure of the backup software....

My A/C was working intermittantly and I bought a replacement Kilma relay. Turns out it was the compressor....still have the relay on the coffee table. There wasted time and money.

Memories
 

This thread brings back memories.
The first time I worked upon a positive ground British vehicle and learned the British wiring code, the hard way. :eek: :eek:

worthless repair
 

I have a british sports car and the front left brake disc brake would lock up on occasion. The caliper was removed and rebuilt, new pads installed, flushed out and renewed the brake fluid, checked the pdwa (a switch which detests loss of brake pressure between the front and rear). The only thing left was the flexible brake line to the caliper. Although it looked perfect from the outside, it had deteriorated internally creating a one way effect not allowing fluid to return when releasing the brakes.

How about just stupid worthless projects - like transferring a factory A/C system into a Ford Pinto? I still cringe at the thought.

Which is the first suspect...very common failure.

switching dashes in a dodge colt....

i just love the problems that i find...

my left front wheel was making a nice clicking sound at all speeds, warped rotor? bad bearings? cracked rotor?... nope.. some idiot had installed the spring clip the wrong way on the ATE calipers.. they put the pins under the clip and the clip was just sitting there doing nothing... might i say i checked all 4 corners and found the same problem...

First project on our '91 190E after driving it home and experiencing a corkscrew motion from the back over freeway undulations was of course to get rear shocks from the dealer (!!!$$$) and replace. When no change, I started shaking wheels and found a loosened track strut bolt on one side. Tightening completely cured the behavior.

Steve

What he said. :rolleyes:

I had an a/c that crapped out and only worked intermittently. I took it to the local mechanic who diagnosed over $700 worth of work (compressor, expansion valve, convert to 134, new dryer). I did the work myself. It worked for a while, but then started to crap out again intermittently.

The problem turned out to be a $25 relay that needed to be replaced!

Absolutely not!
 

Everything I've ever tried to fix was fixed perfectly on the first try and never, ever broke again. I'm surprised to hear that you're having problems.:beerchug:

This is hilarious. Nope, my repairs have been completed on time and on budget. A model of efficiency....

My dad had me help him replace some A/C regulator on his 240D one time because the independent told him it was probably the cause of the freon leaking and that it would be simple to replace so my dad should replace it himself. I ordered the part and it was delivered. D-day, we stood there staring at the part in the engine compartment, I asked if we needed to watch out for pressure the regulator may be containing. Of course, my dad said the independent said, "No, just take the old one off and put the new one on, there's a self-sealing valve...." So we're screwing the thing off and as it reaches the end of the threading the thing goes shooting off like a polaris missile with freon spewing out like Yellowstone's Old Faithul geyser. We both stood there in shock before realizing we should cap this gusher before we lose all this gaseous gold known as freon. So we force the regulator back on like the wildcatters we be, and lament the bad information, the lost $$freon (imagine holding a can of freon like it was THE RING on the Lord of the Rings movies, "my precious", and the slighter larger ozone hole in the atmosphere. Luckily, we didn't "shoot an eye out" when the regulator blew off. Arrrggggghhh, maties!

If anyone knows how to make a '91 300SE not wander on the highway in a slight crosswind, please don't tell me. It's too late to save my sanity!

Over the last 10 years or so I have performed the following, and more, to try to solve it, all without any success. Some of the items needed replacement anyway, but most of them were probably good.
- tires, many
- alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment
- wheels
- springs and spring spacers
- shocks
- steering box rebuild
- steering box adjustment (repeat, repeat, repeat)
- wheel bearings
- idler arm kit (repeat, repeat).
- balll joints
- all steering and suspension bushings
- tie rods (repeat)
- steering damper (repeat, repeat)
- subframe bushings
- diff mount
- Chevis Regal, Jack Daniels, Crown Royal (repeat, repeat).

All I succeeded in doing was having a beautiful, tight car that rides like the day it was new around town, but still is a handful on the highway if there is any wind at all.

Cheers,
DG

G, have you ever seen this BG product? Our local dealer sells/prescribes it for those squeaky pads:

S_CLASS GURU what wheel and tire package are you using [specific sizes please]?

My first car was a 57 Chevy I purchased from my brother. He had removed the slip-an-slide powerglide, and put in a Muncie 4 speed. I managed to wear out the clutch in short order, and took it upon myself to fix in the driveway. I've always been pretty mechanical, so I looked at the thing for a while, then proceeded to beat apart the U-joint at the transmission rear spline. Once I got it apart, I moved on to the rear of the driveshaft & discovered the U-bolts. DUH:dizzy2:.

Got the new clutch in OK, then put back together the front U-joint I had beaten apart. Cash was short in those days, senior year of high school.
About a week later, winding the car up to about 90 mph, loaded with friends, I hear a loud BANG. There went the driveshaft. Damn lucky the car did not flip. We coasted a couple miles to an exit ramp, walked a few miles to a phone, and I broke my meager bankroll getting the car towed home.

Did I mention I can fix anything? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Not precisely on topic, but here goes.

It seems to me that do it yourself car repair is like everything else in life. You have to somehow learn. That means that if you don't have someone to teach you, then you go it alone and learn by trial and error.

One way is the way I learned. Started tinkering at about age 14 on an old Chrysler that my grandfather gave me. Then a '56 Ford I bought for $500. I did, in retrospect, stupid things like crawling under the Ford at night and dropping the transmission down onto my chest in order to wrestle it out. I had blown the synchros and had to fix it. Cars were simpler then.

I learned more mechanical tricks when I worked at Boeing in the late 60's. I was a lead man on the 747 final assembly line.

After finishing College, I lightened up on car repairs for years. I had company cars for the most part. Last 10 years or so I have been doing certain maintenance on MB only. Things like filters and fluids, brakes, etc. I feel it's important to know your knowledge limits. I personally don't waste money trying to diagnose electronics or other very complex systems. Cheaper to pay an expert.

I read posts from people, who obviously don't know squat about wrench twirling, and want all the answers served up to them. I really wish they would buy the manual, read it, try to do the repair, and then ask questions. Learn by trying it first. A lot of the fun is figuring out a solution by trial and error.

Steve

David, sent you a PM on the wandering S-Class - didn't want to hijack this good humorous thread.

DG

Purchased a 97 Suburban with a 6.5 and it was a K1500, can you say rare bird? Anyways first winter here in Vermont the thing always started beautifully, bang and its there. Next summer Veggy oil conversion. Ok at first and then the hard starting problem. Ran great once running and loved veggy, but the hard starting was a PIA. Tried this and that and then I noticed air in my line which on both sides of the IP was telfon tubing so I could see through it. I isolated it down to where I thought the IP was causing the air and I had a low mileage used spare which was like $140 so I swapped it. No difference. What hurt more than the $140 was the work swapping the IP out. Turns out it was the compression fittings leaking air. It sounds so dumb now looking back, doesn't it always. Fixed the air leaks by reefing on the compression fittings ($0 I might add), next time I'll use the inserts that go into the tubing. Didn't use them as I didn't want to restrict at all.

S-Class Guru,

Have you replaced the thrust arm on the rear suspension. This is the usual culprit that make the car wander in cross-winds, at least, on the W124 and may be the same on your car too. The bushing on it are not replaceable and so the whole link needs replacement.

All the "bull**** type type Bondo repairs that I did on my 68 Camaro in Chicago were worthless. I didn't know better and I didn't have the money to do it right anyway. True; I spent HOURS on the rear fenders behind the wheels on big rust spots, getting them just right and painting them. It really looked good for a home body+paint job. In the winter, I was parking my car for the night and kicked some snow off of the back of the car. I put my foot through the entire rear panel. Then, I had to look at the hole from my shoe the rest of the winter every time I got in the car.

I got somewhat smarter when I got a '73 Camaro: The only tools I used to attack rust were a socket set and a jigsaw with a metal-cutting blade.

on my god damn f150...

Before I got it, it was allways the fishing truck.


My grampa decided we should fix the e-brake before he gives it to me...

Then it turned into a mess when he dissassembled the other side, when I was working on my side.................. And neither of us knew how it went... Threw new shoes in, just cause

Then they started sticking... Fair enough, take it apart again, somethings gotta be wrong... Shoulda junked it and bought something else...

We replaced the wheel cylinders, and springs... they still were sticking...

Everything we did to it never did a damn thing...

Here's everything that was done to it.

New reare-brake cables, wheel cylinders, shoes, spring kit (2X), drums, and lines... No fix
Frount rotors, pads, calipers, flex lines, hard lines, proportioning valve, and master cylinder....
not fixed...

Turned out to be a sticky slide pin, I never knew they needed to be greased, neither did anybody who ever changed frount brake pads on it :behead:

$400 into that... plus a radiator, alternator, cheap sterieo/speakers (got stolen), and a tranny filter job...

Now it runs like hell:mad: and has a hole in the dash from the bastards who stole the radio

~Nate

had a strange clunking sound.checked flex discs,both shot.changed both....no difference.checked driveshaft...worn out....bought new one...replaced old one....no change...but it took about an hour of highway speed for it to return.....keep looking....bad sub-frame bushings...replaced....rides better,but....no change.....sound still there.....while under the beast checked rear axles(moving steadily towards the rear)...drivers side had excessive play to and from wheel.changed out last week.so far clunking is gone...but gotta travel to pittsburgh this weekend..so we shall see if it is actually gone.

Looking at the age of the original post, the brake squeal is now gone. Changed from Pagids to Textar pads and replaced the (really bad) rotors one summer.

These days, I try to include some cosmetic task to justify the worthless repair that ensues.

Car sat in garage with burst heater hose and blown head gasket awaiting a tow to the indie...so I painted the brake calipers. Actually, also worthless since the wheel style I'm sporting doesn't allow a real visual of them anyway...unless a bystander wants to crouch down and peer into one of the wheel slots!

Raising the tyre pressure may work. My 300SE (126) also wandered with crosswinds. A cab driver (over here they usually drive Mercedes) told me that he inflated his tyres to the pressure recommended for high speed driving to prevent wandering. I followed his advice and the wandering is gone.

Rob

car ran on 3 maybe 3 and a half cylinders out of 4.

useless repairs: replaced spark plug cables $75 because the boot got a fingernail sized crack on it.

turns out it's the sparkplugs that the last owner never changed since new - 215K on the odometer.

you have seen everything when you see sparkplugs that are rusted along the tread, as well as on the L shaped terminal...... solid solid rust brown.

new NGKs and it's better than ever.

Took my clk to the indie I trust to check the front brakes; he said I needed pads & rotors. No surprise, they were original. He lets me purchase the parts, so I bought them and returned the car to him. When I picked it up a day or two later, the first thing he said: Who told you you needed new rotors?

Guys, thanks for the replies on the "wanderer".
to respond:
- the 300E is unfortunately a more modern rear suspension. The S-Class uses the old subframe with swing arms. I replaced the subframe bushings and diff support, which are reported to be "wander culprits". Toe is in spec, I would adjust it a bit, but it's not adjustable as far as I can discern.
- I run about 34 psi on the tires, I have tried a lot lower, but never higher than 35, I might pump them to 40 and make a trial run. Of course then it would ride like a tank (wait, it is a tank!).

Thanks again, any comments welcome. Right now if you told me to hang a crow's foot from the mirror and burn incense in the ash tray, I'd try it!

cheers,
DG

Had an '88 deville once, and decided to replace the rubber swaybar link bushings with those plastic ones (I forget what kind), thinking that the body roll might be reduced. Nope...not that I could tell anyway. As a matter of fact, I ended up having to replace a link, because one popped a nut. (not a big deal time or money wise...just a pita)

In order to eliminate such squell is to use OE brake pads or OEM brake pads and don't forget to put back the original Sheem. replacement brake pads are the common cause of the irritating sound.