PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

benfield4 · #5 07-22-2016, 02:48 PM

I did the Head Gasket on mine as it was leaking oil from the back of the head onto the exhaust. I pulled the head and took it to a cylinder head shop where they went through it replacing 3 exhaust valves, guides and the guide seals. They also made sure it was square on the mating surface. Put it back on with the ElringKlinger head gasket set and new head bolts. It ran much better after that and oil consumption went down. I agree with the not letting it overheat advice. Mine used to swing in temp pretty bad on a hot day with the clutch fan. I was unlucky enough to by a Behr replacement clutch and it would spend the whole drive locked up. My car sounded like an airplane. Instead of blowing more money on the Sachs clutch I converted it to a SPAL electric fan and a larger alternator. Over the 3 years that I ran this combo it worked pretty well! On a hot day in traffic with only the spal fan on the temp would very slowly climb up to 92C then the aux fans would kick on and the temp would go down to around 82C. It would swing like that much faster when I had the fan clutches on it. You could feel that Spal fan kick on when the alternator would compensate with a blip in the idle. Other than that the 300SE is nice and has adequate power. It was always dogged down a bit taking off from a stop on a hot summer day with the AC and Spal Fan going. Sometimes popping down to first on a hill or when I asked for more power. I got a steady 20-21 MPG on my mixed freeway city street commute to work with the car. Even with it turning over 3200 RPM on the freeway!