67 250se h/v issue

[Benziger]

Hello all,

My w108 has been sailing along smoothly until a problem emerged last night. After sitting at some lights for a while, I had to park the car in a particularly tight spot, which required a fair bit of maneuvering (D, R ... clunk, D, and so on), this raised the temperature above right above the 175. No big deal, but when I got out I noticed a small puddle (maybe 100 ml) of coolant in the driver's side footwell. Oh s***, I thought, maybe I've blown the heater core.

Anyway, about 3 hours later, I had to drive it home, and it went fine, no visible coolant came into the footwell. Next day I took out the carpets, matting, etc., and found not surprisingly that the insulation around the transmission tunnel was damp. Since I got the car, the h/v system hasn't been touched, as I've been trying to ignore it. The fan and directional levers both work fine (although the fan is only on, or off) but both heat levers are broken. After taking off the speaker grill, only there are cables still connected to the levers, the valves (is this right?) they are connected to seem jammed (open I presume).


What's the best thing to do in this situation, will it be costly to fix this leak?
Am I perhaps better off just shutting out the heating system altogether, by connecting the inlet hose straight to the outlet? (I'm in Australia so a heater isn't really necessary).

Any help is appreciated.

[Benziger]

Just one more thing, I was planning on taking the car on a 100 mile round trip this weekend. Is this now inadvisable, or should I be OK as long as I keep the temperature down?

[cth350]

The loose coolant in the passenger compartment isn't good for the carpets, wood, etc. It's been a while since I've been in the dash of a W108, but I recall the valves being accessible from the right angle if you crawl down there.

There is a screw hole on the valve told down the action lever. The thread happens to be the same as a spark plug tip. If you can reach it, disconnect the cable and screw in the spark plug instead and turn the valve.

-CTH

[Mark DiSilvestro]

If you can get the valve bodies out, there are O-ring seals availible to repair them. If they're really stuck, I believe the 'sparkplug' trick should be used to pull, not rotate them. While I was replacing the heater lever assy on a friend's 72 280SE, with the radio and ashtray out, I could see the valves but they weren't easy to reach, though his car did have AC.
Short-term, the safest option would be to bypass the heater before your trip.

Happy Motoring, Mark

[Tassie Tiger]

Benziger,
bypass the heater inlet if you are not worried about heating, however, Melbourne weather can turn nasty even during summer.
To repair the heater valve is inexpensive if only the O rings require replacing. The job is time consuming as you will need to remove the heater box from under the dash. You may as well replace the broken levers whilst they are out. The assembly is about $50 secondhand and this will also give you the proper operation of the 3 speed blower fan.
I did this job about 3 years ago due to a seized heater valve and luckily the heater core was OK. Not sure what a reconditioned core costs.
Tassie Tiger

[Benziger]

Thanks for the tips, you don't know how invaluable you are!
I ended up by bypassing it for the weekend (had to dedicate time to buying ice and beer!), and it held up, even when I got stuck on an island for 50 minutes, when leaving this event, http://www.vhrr.com/phillip_island.htm, which is a great experience if you ever get the chance. Few Mercs, (a couple of 190sls but for lovers of well engineered cars, driven fast, it's just a blast.
Once again, thanks, I'll look to fixing it soon, it's now about #2 on the list.

[Mr Basil]

A working heater is also useful for getting rid of excess heat if you're in a pinch. You don't want to overheat that long head.

Basil