Biggest Bodge - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

t walgamuth · #16 07-02-2007, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wbain5280

A 190C would do 75?

It would do over nintey. It was amazingly fast for what it was. It had a fairly high compression and a good cam on it I suppose, and took premium gas. It needed points every fifteen thousand miles and bosch plugs every ten. If I used champions they only lasted about five.

It was a very nice car.

Drove a lot like a 115 or 123.

Tom W

KylePavao · #17 07-02-2007, 11:31 AM

The rubber exhaust buffer on the 300D broke, creating an annoying rattle from the exhaust when going over bumps. I wedged three ford truck brake pedal rubber pieces under the area and silenced the rattle until I actual fixed it two weeks ago. That bodge lasted 2 years!

When the oil cooler lines broke on the 300D, in Newport RI, I was forced to cut off a section of some guys garden hose (I left him 10 bucks, thanks pal!) and clamp it on both ends over the oil cooler line that was giving me trouble. Lasted till I got home and fixed it!

Maybe my most creative have been using the spray can foam insulation. Where rust holes had created open areas inside the rocker panels, I coated the insides with tons of fluid film and Wd40, filled rockers with said foam, and sealed hole with fiberglass. The car was probably amphibious after I was done with her!

GaryF · #18 07-02-2007, 12:22 PM

Its great when you have a MacGyver moment and it costs nothing to keep your car on the road.
We had a beaten up Datsun when I was young and I skidded in the wet, hit something I shouldnt have done and smashed the front it. My Dad just tied the front of the car to a tree and reversed it until the headlights kind of pointed the right way and it was good for another 5 years.

alabbasi · #19 07-05-2007, 01:14 PM

I had my muffler drop on my 6.9 due to old rubber hangers. So I used a strap from my laptop case to hang it until I got to Autozone.

todds · #20 07-05-2007, 02:37 PM

Not the biggest, but certainly the most recent, and M-B related as well. I bought my 67 230S fintail on ebay a few months ago. It just made it's maiden voyage back to Boston from the barn (on a bona fide working farm in PA) with nary a problem EXCEPT it was damn hot inside!!!

The heater valves were of course, frozen in place on full blast. It was in the 90's that weekend. The solution: break off the flat plastic tab from a Home Despot "Husky" plastic socket set holder that they use to hang them on the wall, dig an old C-clamp out of bottom of toolbox. Squish heater hose from engine in between C-clamp and flat piece a' plastic and presto! Nice and cool in the car the rest of the trip home...

Have I put this "right" yet with a proper shut-off valve from any auto parts store? Heck no...

todds · #21 07-05-2007, 03:09 PM

Wait wait... I totally forgot my 240D story. I got the car free from hippies off of craigslist. It was advertised for $300. It was way south of town near cape cod in a somewhat unusual place called New Bedford. The car was bashed in the front left, which I passed inspection with by riveting cheap diamond plate from the sheet metal supply near my apartment. I brought jumper cables and a can of starting fluid. It only needed the former, the battery was actually brand new. The hippies had just left the lights on and it was outta juice. Once I jumped it, they said I could have it. It came complete with kids' macaroni art in the back window and "High Times" and Bob Marley stickers all over the dash and doors. There was a bumper sticker that said "Single moms are working mothers too" The house they were living in was wall to wall garbage and plants and owned by a very old insane man with a long beard who roomed with about 10 people in their 20's. One of them I went to high school with by random coincidence. They kept getting really strange phone calls where they'd pick up the phone, without a prior word yell gibberish into it, and hang up.

I drove the "D" all winter and then put it on ebay, no reserve, and with very gory pictures of its rusty naughty bits. It made $450 for some reason. Some dude from Wisconsin wanted the engine, it blew black soot and oil like a tired dump truck but he apparently didn't care. It always started and ran.

On the way to the airport, with my ex-girlfriend running shotgun on her birthday we're driving thru the big dig (3.5 miles of tunnel under Boston) and the exhaust decides to separate from the car AT THE MANIFOLD! Only it doesn't just fall off, instead it swings out from side to side for about a mile around curves in the tunnel. First you'd see it out the driver's side window, then the passenger. Meanwhile the car exhaust is reverberating off the tunnel walls and sounds louder than a fat boy. Then it finally broke off and we ran over it like a little speed bump. People are scared. WE were scared. It made it to the airport and all the way home to Wisconsin for it's buyer, no exhaust the entire way. It was one of my favorite cars. German quality

Wodnek · #22 07-05-2007, 05:03 PM

I almost forgot about my college years... A friend had an AMC Hornet with the 232 torque command L6. It had 298000 miles and he would make the trip from UW Parkside (SE Wisconsin near Kenosha) all the way to Oseo Wisconsin (near Eau Claire) every weekend to go home. On one of these trips we figure he spun a main bearing because the oil pressure dropped to nothing and the top end became real loud. He figured Briggs and Kohler do fine on splash lubrication so he overfilled the crank case with 12 quarts of 20W 50. Then he put T handles on the valve cover so he could lube the top end with gear lube before the long weekend trips. He said the engine would stay quiet until about Wisconsin Dells and he would stop to put more gear lube in. This car lasted him from October to May! When It died it was on start up in the parking lot at Parkside. it started one last time and threw a rod through the block.

kalpol · #23 07-05-2007, 06:08 PM

Once I bought a 300D and put an engine in it, and checked everything except the oil drain plug. On its first long trip (Austin to Dallas) after the engine work, all was well - nice day, nice drive, car is a pleasure, etc. After about an hour and a half, when I reached Waco, I started thinking about food, so I stopped at the first place I saw, which was a Sonic....how lucky this chain of events was, I had no idea until a few minutes later. I pushed the little button and ordered my hamburger, and sat there lolling my head on the headrest, listening to the engine...klatta klatta klatta klatta....and then I glanced down at the oil pressure gauge (which had been steadily on 2 at idle). It was below two. This was enough out of the ordinary that I looked at it for a second or two longer, and I saw it drop a little. I began to worry. I turned off the car, and just then the cute little hamburger girl came with my burger (and she WAS cute, too, and gave me the eye, in my big blue Benz.....if she only knew about the little present I was leaving her) and I started the car again. This time it was barely above 1, and I hurriedly backed out of the parking spot and drove to one in a vacant corner 50 or so feet away in front of a little strip mall, just to avoid the embarrassment of my car breaking down in the Sonic parking lot. By the time I got there the gauge was nearly at zero, and I killed the engine again. I got out to check the oil, hoping maybe the gauge was just on the fritz, but when I opened the hood and looked down I saw oil gurgling out on the ground below the engine. I stared down for a second, and then looked behind the car, and saw the trail of oil leading back to where I had been parked at Sonic. In the space I had just vacated was an enormous, spreading, Exxon Valdez-size pool of pitch-black diesel oil. It was running down the gutter, it was on the flowers, it was everywhere. I looked underneath the car, and the oil drain plug was missing. I looked at the pool again and saw another trail leading back the way I had come down the frontage road.
I got back in the car, and decided to eat my hamburger and think about what to do. I started calling around for auto parts stores, thinking it would be cheaper to take a taxi over to get a new plug, rather than having the car towed. As it happened, there was a NAPA about a mile away, so I trudged over there and got two gallons of oil and a temporary rubber plug. I lugged this all back to the car, and prepared to put things back together and get on my way - but the plug didn't fit. It was a little rubber plug with a bolt though it to compress the rubber in the hole, and the head of the bolt was too large for the hole. But I, prepared for all eventualities, had a small sledge hammer in the trunk - I have no idea why. So I beat the head of the bolt with the sledge until it fit through the drain, and it worked great for a few thousand miles until I got a new drain plug.

oxymoron · #24 07-11-2007, 11:54 AM

The rear end of my 6.9 collapsed one day. The little turnbuckle-type arm that hooks to both the suspension valve and the sway bar has a bushing that holds the arm to the suspension member and concentric within the arm connected to the valve. The bushing was brittle and rotted and when it went, the car sank. Exhaust pipe scraping on bumps. I jacked it up and couldn't see the problem immediately.
It was really hot and I was in a really bad part of town and I was dressed in my office clothes and crawling under the car.

This proved that the universe was truly in balance that day.

I had emergency buffers, so I'd remove one wheel, insert the buffer, re-install the wheel and repeat on the other side. When so equipped, the car probably shouldn't be driven over about 10MPH. I was motivated to get the heck out of there and the ride was too bouncy, so I gave it another look and discovered what was wrong.

When the bushing broke, the turnbuckle thing had come completely unhooked, and rather than the ball joint thing resting loose within the valve arm, in which case it would have sunk some, but not fully collapsed, it had fallen out (naturally) the other way. I looked around for something to act as a bushing and hold the turnbuckle ball joint end steady inside the arm for the valve.
I stuck the cap of a Mont Blanc pen (obviously metric) through the inside of the valve arm and pushed the ball joint from the turnbuckle from the other side into the cap of the pen for a tight fit. Removed the wheels and buffers and the car sat up like nothing happened.

Amazing! Pen cap outside diameter fit snugly inside the hole on the arm to the valve. Pen cap inside diameter just right to hold the ball joint on the arm leading to the rear sway bar.

Drove home carefully and the fix lasted long enough to get to the shop the following day.

todds · #25 07-11-2007, 05:35 PM

Haha, Does a Montblanc qualify as a quality aftermarket part for a Mercedes-Benz?

dieseldiehard · #26 07-25-2007, 04:31 PM

Proof positive that if you carry around a Montblanc pen you can afford to drive a 6.9

tc20 · #27 07-26-2007, 06:16 AM

As a teen, i had a summer and weekend job in a 7-11 type store. My dad let me take his Renault 12 some nights, it was the first car i was insured on (very comfortable car too). Anywho, one night i get into the car, start her up, and the accelerator cable broke. I got some waxed twine and tied it to where the cable had snapped. I lived about 5miles from the store, kinda in the country. It must have been winter, as i can remember it was a freezing cold night, and i didnt have a jacket with me. The car had tiger print seat covers, so i undid the cover and wrapped it round my arm for warmth. The car was a manual, so i had to drive with my right arm out the window, and gauge the throttle for the gear changes.
I often wonder if anyone saw me drive home with a 'tiger' hanging off my arm

kalpol · #28 07-28-2007, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tc20

As a teen, i had a summer and weekend job in a 7-11 type store. My dad let me take his Renault 12 some nights, it was the first car i was insured on (very comfortable car too). Anywho, one night i get into the car, start her up, and the accelerator cable broke. I got some waxed twine and tied it to where the cable had snapped. I lived about 5miles from the store, kinda in the country. It must have been winter, as i can remember it was a freezing cold night, and i didnt have a jacket with me. The car had tiger print seat covers, so i undid the cover and wrapped it round my arm for warmth. The car was a manual, so i had to drive with my right arm out the window, and gauge the throttle for the gear changes.
I often wonder if anyone saw me drive home with a 'tiger' hanging off my arm

Same thing happened to me in my 1988 Scirocco 16V in the way to work years and years ago. The accelerator pedal linkage fell off at the firewall. I had a pair of sunglasses in the car with a little rope on them, so I took that off (it was lime green) and tied it to the linkage where it came through the firewall, and pulled on it to accelerate. I had to pull, drop the end of it, shift, grab the rope again and pull...