Fan Clutch Bearing Bracket

[timc]

Just failed on my 1990 300TE. Fan is hitting part of the engine and making tremendous noise. Daughter has been driving the car in FL while I work on her car. I have a good spare from another engine, but have never replaced one while in the car. I am in SC and plan on driving back down to FL one evening this week to repair. Can someone tell me exactly what has to come off so I know what tools to bring? I know obviously the fan and belt are removed, but anything else? Any specific tools?

[JohnM.]

19mm for center belt tensioner bolt
13mm for belt tensioner adjusting rod

7mm allen for fan clutch

You will need a tool to hold the pulley in place to remove the fan clutch bolt, otherwise it will just spin. I ended up using an aircooled volkswagen valve cover bale, but something similar will work. There is notch in the fan clutch bracket that lines up with a hole in the pulley.

8mm to remove the fan clutch pulley, and then 13mm's to remove the bracket itself. Nothing special needed.

[nulu]

Also need 5mm allen wrench for coolant line thats attached to bracket

[timc]

Originally Posted by JohnM.

19mm for center belt tensioner bolt
13mm for belt tensioner adjusting rod

7mm allen for fan clutch

You will need a tool to hold the pulley in place to remove the fan clutch bolt, otherwise it will just spin. I ended up using an aircooled volkswagen valve cover bale, but something similar will work. There is notch in the fan clutch bracket that lines up with a hole in the pulley.

8mm to remove the fan clutch pulley, and then 13mm's to remove the bracket itself. Nothing special needed.

Thanks John. I've had the fan and rad out many times, so no prob at all taking the fan/clutch and belt off, even have the MB "tool" for holding the fan to remove the 7mm bolt. My concern is once I get the fan and belt off, can I just then remove the Fan Clutch Bracket (FCB) and just pop the new one on? Is there anything that is blocking me from removing the FCB? Air Pump??

Thanks again for all the help on this. It's a 4hr drive to get to the car.

Tim.

[glenmore]

If it is anything like a M104 engine, a lot of stuff has to come off to get to the bracket. On the M104, the 3 legged bracket has to come off.

Hopefully your used part has plenty of life left in it, because you don't want to do this job again anytime soon. Everytime you so much as look at that belt tensioner it wants to give up.

[junqueyardjim]

I replaced mine this spring on the 89 M103. I replaced it with the one I had off the old 86 M103 and dogonit it didn't go but 2, maybe three weeks. So then I went with a new one. For a company of MB quality engineering and manufacturing it is a stupid set up. I can hardly believe they built it! But it is pretty easy to replace.

[JohnM.]

You shouldn't have to remove anything special to get the FCB bracket off. I've done it in my driveway a time or two (bad new parts).

[sptt]

It only took me two hours to replace the Fan Clutch Bearing Bracket. Once you get the fan clutch off go down below the front and look up to see where you need to unbolt it from. I have taken off my tensioner several times, loosened it and retightened it with no failure yet. Make sure you loosen the large 10mm bolt in the front (between the waterpump pulley and power steering pulley) first before you loosen the top brass tensioner bolt or it will strip. If I remember correctly one of the bearing bracket bolts needs to have sealant applied to the front and backside of where the bolt goes through and there is an O-Ring that fits into the bolt hole on the block before you put the bracket back on. Easy to miss.

[timc]

Thanks guys. Took me just over an hour, no prob at all. All of the bearings just fell out when I removed the old Bracket.

[sptt]

Sweet! Good to hear.