engine breathing - crankcase breather, etc.
 

Hi, All

I need some basic background info on the breathing of my 102 engined 200E (1993).

I have a real annoying oil leak directly below the air cleaner and the source of the oil leak seems to be the crankcase breather hose that leads to the air cleaner. Nothing serious - more of a source of vapour that causes dirt to build up around the pipe and air cleaner.

I am in the process of cleaning things up underneath the air cleaner and this whole breather assembly of pipes confuses me.

The description of the plumbing associated with the crankcase breather is:

- hose connects to valve cover and immedialty splits into two, one end goes to the air cleaner and the other goes towards the back of the engine.

- The part that goes towards the back has T's off in to a vacuum pipe that leads directly to the fuel pressure regulator (or so says Mr Haynes).
- The pipe continues towards the back and ends up in a Bosch electric motor (looks similar to the aux pump (!)) and then it goes down and under the intake plumbing.

As I said, I want to clean things up and maybe even fix this annoying source of oil in the engine but without knowing what goes where - or what does what - I'm a little reluctant to unplug all that plumbing.

I do not find anything in Mr. Haynes' repair manual and the MBUSA CD's does not cover the 102 engine.

I really would appreciate any help in identifying what the normal function of these items are before I mess up somethng expensive when cleaning.

L
BTW, I hit 220 000 km today !!