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TimFreeh · #4 09-20-2012, 11:27 AM

I just went through with these issues on my C230 last December. The rear needle bearings are actually very easy to replace, just press-in the new bearings and re-grease and your good to go.

In my blower I could detect no play in the front bearings but the rear needle bearings were shot, its pretty easy to tell because there should be virtually zero free-play in the rotor lobes, certainly none that you could detect without a dial indicator.

I was planning on replacing the rear needle bearings but I ran into problems sourcing the correct bearing. Apparently there are a couple of different ID/OD dimensions on different version of the M62 blower. I did manage to get what I think is the correct set on the 3rd try but when I re-assembled the rotor lobes I found that I had contact between the lobes at certain points. After some further reading I found out that sometimes machining of the lobes is required after bearing replacement.... at this point I decided I was over-my-head and decided to box the whole thing up and have it rebuilt by a professional. I used Embree speciality machine in Missouri - they did a great job and as I recall it was around $600?

Another issue is the electro-magnetic clutch. The bearings are available but the flex-plate on the front of the clutch wears out at the point where the rivets attach the friction surface to the spring-steel external face. On my clutch this was the only problem but I was unable to find a source for the flex-plate, I ended up replacing the entire clutch assembly because I wanted it 'right'. MB seems to be the only source for the clutch and it was around $450 if I recall. So in short I ended up paying around $1,000 for a virtually new blower/clutch assembly.

I saved $500 over the cheapest remanned unit I could find but the car was out of service for the better part of two weeks while I coordinated all the activities associated with a re-build. I could see someone paying an extra $500 to avoid all the hassles of what I went through and have the car back in service in one day.

My car had 170K on the original blower and it was making quite a racket, after the rebuild its 99% quieter.

Another route to go is to try to find a used lower-mileage unit, two weeks after I completed this whole process I actually had a used M62 from a SLK show up in a car transaction. It's supposed to be from a 40K mile car that had supercharger issues and was replaced by a local MB dealer under warrantee when the clutch went bad. I have no way to verify that story but the bearings do appear to be in good shape. I can't guarantee it but I'd sell it to you for $150 if you wanted to take a chance on it, PM me if interested.

Good luck, its not that hard a process but it does take some time.