Temporary Fixes and Jerry-Rigged Repairs. Whats your best/worst? - Page 3 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

JordaanDMC-12 · #31 01-10-2010, 10:42 PM

Oooooo if this was a contest I would totally win haha

My 91 300E has had a very hard life....

I'll have to put pics up later but lets see WHERE dooo I begin?

Well, the corner lights would not stay in, so what did the PO do? They glued the corner lights to the body then tied a string from the back of the light to some random metal part so it would not budge.

They interior trim piece on my passenger door where the mirror is, is screwed into position where it should just pop in on its own.

The radio is a complete mess, the PO needed to route the speaker wire from the door to the interior where the radio is, and how did they do that? Instead of routing it through where it was supposed to go like any normal person they routed it outside that so I have this ugly little wire showing every time I open the door, and this is on both sides.

For god knows what reason they took out all the courtesy lights from the bottom of the doors and trunk????? :/ Wires just cut and left hanging...

The gas tank is not screwed in properly and is loose, the rear headrest rubs against it and makes noise when I drive.

The PO forgot to take their pet black widow whom I bumped into today from behind the gas tank, probably got in there from the random hole they cut in the trunk door behind the license plate, again for who knows what reason....

THEN lets not forget the giant whole cut into the medal behind the rear seats, probably for drug smuggling, I'm now going to have to have a police dog sniff over the car so I feel comfortable if I go over international boarders.

They put some random rims on it that don't even fit it correctly and then put spacers that don't fit correctly either, so barley any of the lug nut actually goes into the rotor so I have to be careful of the wheel falling off..

The front right and both rear speakers are missing, wires cut and just left hanging and I can't even find the wires for the front right speaker.

When we got the car we were given the valet key so all it does is start the car, it doesn't even lock the doors.

Got the worst paint job probably done by their "amigos" who left drip marks all over the place, spots where there is too little and too much paint. Scratch marks everywhere, he painted the fog lights black, and the lower door plastic portions dark dark grey..

ps2cho · #32 01-11-2010, 04:37 AM

Here is my bean-can exhaust pipe

Temp solution until I can find a whole exhaust backwards of the cat as the piping has gaping huge holes in it.

(fyi there is wire around it, not just zipties which will melt off eventually)

88260e · #33 01-11-2010, 03:32 PM

checking the caps and rotors I noticed that the drivers side coil wire had been cut and twisted back together and covered in black tape!

tinypanzer · #34 01-11-2010, 09:02 PM

Busted coolant temp sensor on a '90 300SE. I used two fixed resistors to simulate a reading to the computer. Poor fuel economy, but the car ran until Phil got me the replacement part!

Holmesuser01 · #35 01-24-2010, 10:35 AM

1984 190E 2.3:

Bought this from a friend. Dont blame him for any of this.

First, I had to turn the ignition switch to on, and press a small button under the dash to start the car. A used ignition lock cured this one.

Drive belt was installed around the outside of all of the pulleys. Tensioner would do nothing. First guy that worked on it for me said nothing about this being wrong. When I got the manual on a CD thru this site, I found the correct belt routing. Problem solved. Also, installed used tensioner, as the old one was ruined.

Car has the wrong alternator installed. I made a new bracket to make it work on my engine. It no longer bows toward the water pump when tension is applied. Problem solved.

Car has wrong air conditioning compressor installed. Removed compressor, as it didnt work anyway, and had no freon in the system. Sealed off the remaining A/C lines, and installed drive belt for a non-A/C system. Problem is still here, no A/C, but is manageable. Roll down the window, or dont drive the Benz on a hot day!

There is alot more, but these are the ones that pop into my mind right now!

Bruce

JamesDean · #36 01-31-2010, 11:36 PM

Alright so, a few of my friends and I were getting together tonight to work on some homework and my one friend has a 90' 300SE, we actually just did a tune-up on it a few days ago. He got here and came down to tell us that he heard a whining sound when he parked the car and turned off the motor. He ran in my house, grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery. After looking a bit he discovered that his start was glowing red. Apparently it had been running the entire time on his 20 minute journey to my house.

Not really wanting to pay for a tow truck, we toyed with the idea of tow-starting it. I have two 300SD's and my 190E..alas we had no tow strap. He has a 06 Jeep Wrangler at his house, so we drove back and picked up the Jeep.

We deemed the likelihood of success to be fairly low, we predicted that the 300SE would go flying into the back of the Jeep and I would ended up with an airbag to the face and the SE's front end would be demolished by a ball hitch and spare tire.

However, it actually was quite uneventful and worked the first time. 300SE's speedo read a little higher than 20, I jammed the transmission into "2" and a second or two later the engine popped on.

We'd never done this before, and the people that I talk to regularly from here hadn't before either so it was a first.

So if you're ever in similar situations and have a pre-91 era vehicle you should be good to give this a try.

MB220D300D · #37 03-10-2010, 02:17 PM

Hello ! Regarding post #23, wherein it was said "...rubber in the throttle linkages on a 617 diesel", I have a '84 300D (Turbo)(bought in '95, and a '73 220D before that), and although I know about the 20 or so ball-n-socket rods, where are the rubber pieces ?

Dave H.

Mike D · #38 03-11-2010, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ps2cho

Here is my bean-can exhaust pipe

Temp solution until I can find a whole exhaust backwards of the cat as the piping has gaping huge holes in it.

(fyi there is wire around it, not just zipties which will melt off eventually)

So THAT'S where the term, "fart can" comes from!

280EZRider · #39 03-11-2010, 01:12 PM

Many years ago when I was poor, I had a 65 Mustang in need of major exhaust system repair. A friend let me borrow his acetylene set, but I didn't have the money for welding rods, and he didn't have any. He did have some hangars lying around, so I used them for rods. And it worked and never fell apart.

strelnik · #40 03-11-2010, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanzerSD

Here's my prize winner and HUGE money saver.

My heater fan went on my SD a few years ago, and of course it was the coldest part of winter, and I NEEDED to get this fixed. the nearest replacement had to come from the states and was going to cost me ALOT, I think around $400. NO GO. so I took a heater motor from a 1990 Nissan 240SX, and trimmed the flange and cut the mercedes motor from it's flange and welded it up and did some swappage with fan cages from several I had lying around. I think I was almost at one point, ready to install a modified fan from a 1955 Ford

East German Commies had once handcuffed me with McGuyver to a nuclear reactor that had been set to leak, thereby bursting, after which twenty tons of concrete would come down on us to reduce the radioactivity.

Mac Guyver found that one of the guys had left a piece of wire on the table. After straining I got the wire, the end of which Mac Guyver used to open the handcuffs. Mac Guyver then stuck the wire in my mouth and used two of my teeth as a wire stripper to get several fine filaments. He broke off the edge of a plastic spoon he found to open the main panel and jury rigged things so that the reservoir below would flood the coolant chamber. At the same time, we emptied a 55 gallon drum, and Mac Guyver then jury-rigged the circuitry to send the concrete crashing down. We stood up in the drum, which acted as a boat as the concrete slowly floated us to higher ground and an access vent, whereby we made our escape.

We then made our way out of the country but that's another story....

oldsinner111 · #41 03-11-2010, 04:11 PM

Long ago,overheated in the El Paso sun off road.We had beer my 2 friends and a girl helped fill the radiator with pee.

skinnison · #42 03-11-2010, 10:01 PM

Not too impressive, but this may save some of you money. My 95 e320 wagon has not had heat in the front for your feet for years. I go fed up and pryed open the vent and shoved a AA battery in between the fins, (it was the only thing that fit that was handy). Just enough heat now for a cold winter in New Hampshire.

Mike D · #43 03-12-2010, 09:32 AM

Try this one.

On my 74 W114 coupe the hardened plastic ball socket on the firewall end of the accelerator linkage went to pieces from age. This allowed the linkage to just flop around in the mounting hole. It caused some pretty strange behavior when you pressed on the pedal and also didn't want to go back to idle.

Couldn't find anything in my collection of oddball spare parts but I did manage to find an old shock absorber bushing. One of the ones from the top part of the shock. A little carving to fit it into the hole, a $0.45 plastic bushing from the hardware store and it's back in business.

Now I need to look up the part number and order one from the dealer.

Will_w202 · #44 03-12-2010, 11:30 AM

definitely tying a broker lower-bumper to the upper part with a 12" tie wrap

Red bumper, big white tie wrap. Still looked misaligned, lol

layback40 · #45 03-13-2010, 06:41 AM

1/When I was a young poor student,I had to get a roadworthy on a car, the front shocks were bad, before the days of gas shocks. I took them off. drilled a 1/16 hole in the base. drained the fluid out. Refilled with diff oil. Spotted an arc weld to seal the hole. refitted the shocks. It passed. Did about 50k miles on those shocks. Typical student car!!

2/ While driving up a rough dirt road in my old 300d, I hit a bad pot hole. The exhaust started to drag. Several of the black rubber ring hangers were broken. I had some used poly hay band in the trunk. I wrapped it around the mounts about 10 times & tied it off. Forgot to replace the hay band, about 5 years later, it broke, Did the same repair but this time I remembered and replaced the rubber rings a few days later.