Preliminaries: bought a 93 300SL which runs rich. Car smoked badly out the exhaust which smelled of gas. Installed a new water temperature sensor, car will now idle, but still blows a little black smoke. Removed the fuel distributor to try to clean it and notice that the part number is for a 300E, not an SL (expletives deleted).

Found an entire airflowmeter assembly complete with EHA, fuel pressure regulator and fuel distributor from a 92 300CE with correct part numbers on eBay. The body has the same part number as my old one (0438121082) but the fuel distributor has the correct part number (0438101044). Intake boot on bottom of unit has same part number as the old one (1041410090). Donor had 98k miles.

Today, I pulled the old AFM, replaced the injector holders, seals, and o-rings, replaced the intake hoses to the AFM and ICV, and tried to install the new AFM. After about an hour of trying, I still cannot get the intake boot on the bottom of the AFM to seat.

I bought the WIS for the car without thinking that I had installed Win7 on my two main systems. A few weeks ago, I spent at least 4 hours before I concluded that the WIS will not install on Win7 but since I reinstalled the AFM on my 300E when I reworked the head (although 6 or 7 years ago), decided to try it from memory. I don't remember this much hassle.

After giving up in front of an approaching storm and reflecting on what happened, it occurs to me it may work if I remove the intake butterfly, mount it on the bottom of the AFM, and then bolt the butterfly down. Is this the trick or is there something I am missing?

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1988 300E
1993 300SL
1994 540i

If I have a problem with my Mercedes, I go to MercedesShop. If I have a problem with my BMW, I go to BimmerNut.
If I have a probem with my Dell, I reboot it. I was an engineer for them for 10 years and we blamed everything on Microsoft.