126 / 560 SEL - 1988 - Oil and wire help - long ...
 

In the passenger side door, when you remove the speaker box, you can see the door frame. In there I found a wire with a round plastic connector at the end without a "home'. I looked in the door with a mirror and could not find where this should be linked up to ..... thoughts?

Also, I have been burning a quart of oil every 250 or so miles! Yup, that is a lot. I have heard people talking about the valve guide seals - has anyone gotten this done professionally? If so, what is the range of expense? Is it wiser in the long run to change the engine altogether? Sources for this kind of project - where to buy and engine, cost etc ... i saw an ad that had options for a long and short block. What kind of block is on the 88 560 SEL?

Lastly - can anyone tell me what kind of bulb fits in behind the shifter area? There is no bulb in there and it was a little dark to find the spot the light should be too! But, if I know the size of the bulb, I can work on a process of elimination. Please help?

Ohh, while I'm at it - the car seems to lean toward the left - about an inch and a half or so. Is this a function of some mounts? How expensive are these to replace? Or is it something else? The self level suspension?

My car has 210k miles on it, I love it, it runs strong and have been putting in effort to get it up to 100%. It is quite cold ... but will keep pluggin along.

I had the valve stem seals replaced on my '88 560SL and it cost about $700. I think it's about $50 in parts and a whole bunch of labor. I was using about a quart of oil for every 100-150 miles.

The bulb is a little 2W bulb with a micro-compression? fitting. I couldn't find one at an auto parts store, but a bulb specialty shop had tons of them. They cost about $1. I know Sylvania makes the right size.

Does your alarm system work? The round plastic connector is probably the connection to the door handle. Most of the time this is unplugged to compensate for a malfunction in the alarm system.

If you have never had the heads off, it is past time for a top-end rebuild. It will cost about $2500-$3000, but it sure is better than replacing a whole engine. The bottom end almost never goes bad.

When was the last time you had maintenance done on the suspension? The self-level needs to be babied, i.e., frequent fluid changes, etc. Is it leaking?

OH, forgot about the bulb in the center console. On mine, there is a cluster of fiber optic cables behind the A/C controls fed by one, bright bulb. In order for that to be the case, you would not have lights to any of your center console except the A/C controls.

Oops. The shifter light I was talking about is in my SL. I haven't opened up the console yet on my SEL, so I'm not sure how it's lit.

I have heard people talking about the valve guide seals - has anyone gotten this done professionally? If so, what is the range of expense? Is it wiser in the long run to change the engine altogether?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The valve guide seals job should run in the $500 to $750 range and is a whole lot cheaper than changing the engine. Why change the engine unless it is totally worn out? Doing the engine rebuild/swap would put you into the $3500 to $5000 range.

Mclaren:
regarding the wire on the passenger door, is there a speaker on that door? This wire could be the one for the speaker...

Valve stem seals are easily done in place, the heads do not have to come off and the seals should be replaced at your mileage. Do the seals first, this will definitely not fix your oil consumption but it will cut it down a lot.

Matt.

Definitely do the valve stem seals. It might cure your oil loss problem. Like I said earlier, I went from adding a quart every 100-150 miles to not losing a drop. 7 of my 8 cylinders were leaking and one plug was fouled.

I've got my receipt in front of me. $52 in parts, 9 hrs labor. Total cost for me was $720.

Oh, about half the cost in parts was all new spark plugs.

I recently did a tune up myself and the plugs came out clean!! But I still drink oil like ..... hmmm, I thought it was valve seals ... could be something else then?

Are the oil additives any good?

To answer some of the questions .... the wire in the door isn't the speaker wire .... could be alarm, but, I don't know where it plugs in and I am not sure how the alarm arms itself. I did not get a remote with the car, but, I know it works as I opened the hood one time with the car locked!

I will try for the 2W bulb - thank you. It's quite cold to do that, but I need to find this bulb first.

Suspension - it was leaking when I bought the car. Fixed that and there is fresh MB fluid in there..... but it still seems to sag a tad on the driver side ....

Thanks for all your feedback ..... it helps in a BIG way!

In '88, the alarm did not have a remote. It armed when you locked the car with the key, and disarmed when you unlocked the car with the key. If it goes off, the owner's manual has the instructions. I think you just need to lock and unlock a door (with the key) to turn the alarm off.

Valve stem seals
 

Have just replaced the valve stem seals on my 500se and oil consumption problem has gone, like the other guys have said, the bottom end lasts a long time, you will need one special tool to do the job other than that it’s a reasonably easy job without taking off the heads, there is a full procedure for it on this or another merc forum. The seals are as cheep as chips, I paid US $ 1.50 each ( $24 for the set ) the valve compression tool I made. Good luck