I'm sorry to hear that. I still don't believe that these evaporators are 100% DESTINED to leak. The dissimilar metal construction is a poor design, but I just don't believe that they have a 100% failure rate. Hopefully mine will be the last one alive to prove that it is still at the 99.999% level.

Since you've replaced it before, you know that it is a job doable by mortal man. I did a podectomy about five years ago which was 98% of the work of an evaporator change. Although it was time consuming, with the factory manual print outs at hand, I went through it with no incident.

I did it in August in a non air conditioned shop. I raised the car about two feet or so on my lift with all four doors wide open and a high volume fan blowing through the car. It was at such a height that I could stand next to the car and reach under the dash easily OR I could just sit on the edge of the seat and easily scoot up into the car. It took ALMOST 15 hours work time.

Good luck,

My 1993 124 has the original evaporator. Only a/c repair it has ever required has been to replace a leaky expansion valve. That was 5 years ago, and it is doing just fine against the Texas heat this summer.

I probably just jinxed myself, didn't I?

- JimY

Jim, we're both jinxed now, but I have a plan. When the evap in both your car and mine spring a leak in the next few days, we'll toss a coin. The loser pays to air condition the other persons shop and then we change both of the evaps there. Whad'ya think?

Bring the air conditioner to my garage, please! Hot, humid, Alabama weather. When I replaced the evap on my other car, it was January!

:eek:

My 1993 300E (3.2) that I sold to JCE a few years ago had its original evaporator, and had the coldest a/c on any car I've ever had.

My Mercedes mechanic tells me that the early W124's, say '86 to '89, had a higher fail rate, but the later ones rarely leak.

He swears a leaky evap is the exception, not the rule.

I guess it's just the luck of the draw.

My friends and myself have owned '88, '90, '91, '93, '95 and '95. Every one of the evaporators leaked.

This time I got quotes from $1800 to $2700. One shop declined altogether. The MB dealer was too busy to give me a quote, at least in the amount of time I wanted to waste waiting for them on the phone.

I started on it today. I am going to give the Meistersatz a try this time. The ACM I installed on the other car did not fit perfectly.

I looked at the OE Behr but it still has aluminum with copper on it so I hesitated. Didn't really want to reward them for making me replace the one already in the car, anyway.

You do have bad luck. Maybe it's a climate thing related to humidity. California is pretty dry relative to Alabama.

If I could line up all the 124 evaporator jobs that I could do for $1,800 I would be retired in short order. I would even do them in my hot shop in August for that price. In fact, I would just air condition my shop if I had them lined up down the street awaiting $1,800 evaporator jobs.

Larry, sounds like a plan. Although I suspect that air conditioning our shops will cost more than just farming out the evap job to a good indy while we sip cold drinks in the shade!

Window units work great. I have one in my garage.

I don't think that there are enough window units in Lamar County to a/c my shop. It's an old metal hay barn. It keeps off the rain and wind. It would be like trying to a/c the great outdoors.

Well, moving right along. Not as bad as I remembered it. I did take the steering wheel off this time and that makes a big difference. Evaporator case does not seem to be stuck to firewall so much as the one on my other car was...looks ike it will come off pretty easily. Every vacuum pod is bad except one of the recirc pods.

Yes, it can be done with the steering wheel in place, but it's quick and easy to get it out of the way and it provides extra access.

Be sure to store the air bag, bag side up, and follow instructions for disarming, which you obviously did, since it is successfully off the car.

If I were you, I would leave no pods unreplaced, with the exception of the defrost if it were good, which I think you could change without removing the dash.

Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on the project so far.

Today's progress...

looks as though you are doing well isn't this fun.look very carefully at the fresh air door mechanism[i know you are repacing the vacuum elements] you may find some worn rods and the last thing you need when back together is a fresh air door that doesn't completely close.