Long story short....rebuilt 2.3 Engine 190E..1500Km on the engine. Coming home today...charging light comes on....5 miles from home, I think "no problem" I'll get it home and look at it...temperature rising ...120 C..OH GEEEZ! But ...no knocking...I figure.."oh, all the other guages are going nuts, so I bet the temp gauge is OK too..oil pressure is OK at 3 bar....get it home, turn in to the driveway (only turn since the failure) the steering is hard..OK it's a belt. Park it. Nice little bit of steam escaping from the PLASTIC rad hose assembly, and , no surprises, no belt. BUT ..what's this? ..where's the tensioner pulley? GONE! looks like the bolt broke off and the pulley is gone. I can replace the pulley OK, and the RAD is a snap (if NOT cheap) But my major concern is


Did I wreck my ENGINE? will it take 120 degrees for 4 miles? it still had most of the coolant in it when I parked it.

I can't bear it. $3K into that engine.....is it a goner cause of a BOLT?

Sorry to hear about your situation. We will not know until the engine is back running with a new tensioner and belt.
These engines can take lots of abuse, so I would not be surprised if the engine is OK.

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1999 Porsche 996 Carrera Convertible
1994 420E - SOLD
1986 300E - SOLD, what a car
609 Certified

whenever your car is close to overheating you want to turn on the heater to max as soon as possible as that usually helps to cool the coolant. the heater matrix is nothing but a small radiator.

as for damaging your engine its possible.

you should be paying more attention to your instrumentation and making sure you
a) have good oil pressure
b) are not close to over heating (near or above 100 mark)
at all times.

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'O=00=O'
bmw 2002.
long live the legend

Well so far one vote for yes, the engine is probably OK, and one vote for possible damage....lol I'm no further ahead than I was when I started.

For what it's worth, after the engine cooled down and I charged the battery, the engine started and ran for a minute until I shut it down..idle a bit rough, but doesn't feel like a miss....maybe low voltage to the FI computer?

I had problem similar to yours. I was stuck in traffic (real bad accident, I was basically stopped) and my fan wouldn't go on. I was ****ting bricks because the temp guage was at MAX. I didn't notice it initially because as long as the car was moving, the temp never got too high. Something was wrong with the thermostat. After getting the thermostat fixed my mechanic told me that these engines run hot. My fan does not kick in until the temp guage is approx 3/4 max. The engine still runs fine, so hopefully yours is O.K. too.

The tensioner pulley on my car also broke and the exactly same thing happened, my steering was gone. when I opened the hood, the belt was off and the tensioner pully was broken. I had the hardest time fixing that pully. I ended up havign it towed to the mechanic to continue my attempts to fix the tensioner pulley.

Good luck.

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JR
1986 Gold 300E 4Dr automatic

What's the max temp you saw?

---I THINK it was in the red but I can't remember


Did the flying parts hit anything and damage anything?

---not a thing, but If I still had the belly pan on the car I'd still have the pulley! ( I left it off after I rebuilt the engine to facilitate the montoring of possible fluid leaks)


How much coolant did you lose?

---hardly any

Did the steam loss due to damage by flying object?

--no, the steam came from a crack in the upper rad hose housing on the rad...caused, I believe due to the rad's age, and the extreme heat


Can you rent a pressure tester and do a cooling system check?

- I have access to a tester so n/p there

I'd change the oil for good luck and to see if there is any coolant in the old oil. You could do a compression and or a leak down test.My guess is the worst thing you might have done would be to warp the head or blow a head gasket .But My guess is that if you still had all your coolant that you did no damage.I think that the one belt system that most if not all car makers use is one of the worst designs possible .......

William Rogers........

Another vote for no major engine damage.

If you hardly lost any coolant, i'd say your engine is ok.
If your engine had become hot enough to damage the internals, your coolant would have vapourized long ago..

I agree with William. -Change the oil. Your engine needs a little goodie after this.

Freestyler

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Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do, you're a mile away -and you have his shoes!


'86 300E optically converted to '95 E300 (Sold)
-Blauschwarz on silver
-Black leather
-17" AMG & 15" AMG for winter

Wont know till ya drive it.

Beware of crankshaft damage.

My wifes Hyundai blew a waterpump. She noticed it relatively quickly and shut the car down, but it did overheat.

I replaced the waterpump but now the crankshaft is messed up. I keep sheering off harmonic balancer bolts. Seems they go out after about 2000 miles now.

Other than that the engine runs fine. A little noiser than it used to be without any noticable performance loss.

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'84 300CD Turbo 132k (Anthracite Grey) - WVO - My daily driver - Recently named coo-coo-coupe by my daughter.
'84 300D Turbo 240k (Anthracite Grey) - Garage Queen
'83 300D Turbo 220k (Orient Red) - WVO - Wifes daily driver

I'm not a certified mechanic, but I did stay at a HolidayInn Express last night.

As much as Hyundai has improved things in the last few years, I wonder if their parts are as hefty an over engineered as Mercedes...

120 C = 248 F. Many Domestic cars don't turn on the cooling fan until 240 {+ or - 10). I don't think you have any thing to worry about.

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84 500 SEL (307,xxx miles)