Headaches and Heartache

[alipies]

Hello

I was searching the net for Mercedes manuals and found this forum, and found a few old posts relating to some of the problems I'm having with my beloved 1990 carburated 2.6 190E Mercedes.

I have some repair experience and have done a number of repairs on my cars through the years. The most ambitious being replacing the left front control arm, axle, ball joint and brake caliper on a 74 sirrocco.

First I was curious where everyone is getting their repair manuals. I noticed Chiltons doesn't have anything after 1984. Did mercedes stop them from publishing them? I saw that mercedes sells the manuals, but like everything else mercedes, they are somewhat pricey.

My most pressing problem with the car is that the waterpump is making noise and the engine is overheating. My wife's mechanic puts the job at $500, $300 for the pump from the dealer and $200 for labor. Is this a job I can or would want to do?

The other issue is that the engine will, from time to time, surge while idling, and sometimes stalls. My previous mechanic could never figure it out and eventually disconnected the O2 sensor. He thought it might be the computer, but was able to find another computer to temporarily put in the car to check and the car still had the same problem. Now with the O2 sensor disconnected, the car still has the same problem. Another potentially related problem is the cruise control doesn't work properly. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it feels like the car is trying to hang on to the speed it's set at, and then just lets go. It feels like a vacumn problem, but I don't know.

The car is probably worth about a $1000 on a good day. If I pay to get it fixed, I'm looking at $500 for the water pump, probably $300 for a broken rear window regulator, maybe $500 for the O2 sensor. Not to mention I live in CA and the catalytic converter has to be changed the next time I have to get it smogged (next January)

I like the car, but with a 6 month old baby, my wife refuses to drive it anymore. I'd like it to be reliable again.

But the first step is the water pump. If I get that fixed... at least I can drive it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Alan