I have seen a MB pump through to the end of it's life - not pretty. It made a little squallerin sound, then let go. The front bushing Benzmac referred to had frozen up on mine after the front seal had gone south. The loudest of the noise came when the bushing cooked to the shaft and spun.

The dealer wanted $650.00 for a rebuilt. I found a very good used one at the dismantler for $50.00. Came with the mounting bracket installed (wrong one however, but no biggie). Not terribly difficult to replace, but be sure to have a 14 mm hex drive socket to remove the resevoir from the top of the pump body if not equipped with the remote resevoir.

If you do play with the belt tension, do not get the belt too tight as this will hasten the pump failure. The Techs here all agreed that the only times they had seen these Vickers pumps fail as mine did, was due to over tightened belts. Turned out, the P/O had installed the wrong belt, one which was too small for the application. The pump was doomed to fail.

------------------
Mike Tangas
73 280 SEL 4.5