I maintain a 91 300E for my uncle, who uses it to drive into town occasionally and bi annually drives from Aurora CO to Sacramento. He was here recently and his belt was loose enough to cause the power steering to skip so I tightened it for him. I even peered at the evil stupid bearing bracket and thought theres still room between the fan pulley and balancer, it hadn't began collapsing yet so I figured Good!. Anyway the friggin thing collapsed in the middle of utah (probably because I tightened the belt). He got home fortunately but chewed up his fan pretty good. We need a mechanic around denver that can do this repair. I'm a mechanic by trade and this has me worried. It seems like an easy job but Ive worked in shops and I know how this goes. He'll find a euro shop and they will throw one of their 3 apprentices at it (who probably drive Focus STi's) and he'll break the tensioner by not loosening the 19mm, not replace the special oil sealing bolt o-ring, break carbon electrode off the dist. cap, break the shroud, and probably leave the 19mm loose on the tensioner. They''ll probably use a URO part as well and it will fail again rapidly (been through 5 shops myself and the owners ALWAYS pick that URO **** to maximize their margin even though us techs have problems with nearly every uro item).



Anyway enough negativity of crap that hasn't even happened. I want to find a shop over there that can be trusted with an older Mercedes. Anyone know a MB shop with some employees that might be familiar with older mercedes? Or an individual that might want to get some side work? Theres no way I'm getting on a plane during COVID crap to replace a damned bearing bracket. I was going to post this in "good mb shops" but that place is deader than dead.





Any guidance would be appreciated.

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1981 300SD 512k OM603

turbo, buy a reconditioned fan bearing bracket from a MB dealer. If you do not give them the old fan bearing bracket you will pay a core charge. The replacement process is tedious and time-consuming, but not that difficult. The front of the engine probably is coated with grease/grime which will have to be cleaned off so you can access the various bolt heads. As I recall the power steering pump has to be removed because the FBB shares a common bolt. You want a tech who works on MB vehicles to do the replacement, or you could have a nightmare scenario. Plan to replace the drive belt tensioner and the drive belt while you are at it … definitely no URO parts!

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Fred Hoelzle

PM'd

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90 300TE 4-M
Turbo 103, T3/T04E 50 trim
T04B cover .60 AR
Stage 3 turbine .63 AR
A2W I/C, 40 LB/HR
MS2E, 60-2 Direct Coil Control
3" Exh, AEM W/B O2
Underdrive Alt. and P/S Pulleys,
Vented Rear Discs, .034 Booster.
3.07 diffs 1st Gear Start

90 300CE 104.980
Milled & ported head, 10.3:1 compression
197° intake cam w/20° advancer
Tuned CIS ECU
4° ignition advance
PCS TCM2000, built 722.6
600W networked suction fan
Sportline sway bars
V8 rear subframe, Quaife ATB 3.06 diff

If you wish a MB shop to do, that will not use URO parts- only genuine MB, contact German Motors, north of 6th on Union/Simms. I’ve trusted them for years.

If it means anything .. I have a uro pulley bracket on my w124 and hasn’t broke yet. So Far good for at least 4 years and 50k miles. One of the few uro parts that I bought that hasn’t completely self destructed

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1993 e300
1995 e320
1994 e320
2006 s500 4matic
2004 Jeep wj overland
2001 Ducati 748
2004 Honda shadow aero