So my water pump died and I had to have my 86 300e towed 5 whole embarrasing miles. I talked to a mechanic and he quoted me 4.3 hours worth of work. Plus $240 for the part. I'm a fairly good mechanic, but for some reason, I'm intimidated on this one.

Is this a tough bear of a job or am I being silly? I know I'll have to remove the radiator (not looking forward to that!) and then get to the water pump itself. My water level is okay, but my fan completely fell off. Luckily it didn't do any damage to my radiator. I'll need a new belt of course and should probably change the hoses. Anything else I'll need or will a new pump be all? Will I need a Water Pump Kit?

I don't want to do this job but I can't financially afford to pay someone else to do it for me, so here I go!

Thanks!

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Kyle De Priest
2007 e320 Bluetec
2013 GLK 250 Bluetec

You are going to need more than a water pump if your fan fell off. Based on your write up I would recommend paying someone to replace the water pump on this car. The fan is not attached to the water pump.

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Jim

Are you sure you need a water pump? Jim is correct in saying the fan is not attached to the pump. If the fan came off it sounds like you have a problem with the fan-clutch assembly or the pulley assembly it is mounted to.

The water pump is on the drivers side of the engine underneath the intake manifold, and it is not a fun job to replace. If it is bad, be sure to have plenty of socket extensions, swivel attachments, and foul language prepared before you start.

Good Luck!!

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‘84 300TD “Mountain Goat”
'62 300d Adenauer-350 Chevy - "Max"
'15 VW Passat TDI
'16 Dodge Ram 3500 - Cummins w/6-speed
'68 Mustang fastback
'55 T-bird
‘63 Studebaker Hawk

Well,
as you can see, I'm not as familiar with my car as I should be. Ugh.
I guess I need to do more research.
Thanks for the input and I'll let you know if I need help with the fan clutch assembly.
Happy New Year!

ps, any more input would certainly be helpful. I appreciate all the help I can get.

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Kyle De Priest
2007 e320 Bluetec
2013 GLK 250 Bluetec

The part that sounds like it failed is the fan bearing bracket assembly. Pretty straight forward to change it out. Would you feel comfortable with a valve adjustment on a 617 engine? If you do then you should be able to change it out. You will, more than likely, get into replacing stuff $$ on the front of the engine that is not visually obvious as being worn out. The first thing that comes to mind is the belt tensioner assembly. The water pump replacement is more of a pia than hard in my opinion and then you still want to have the correct type of extension.

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Jim

It's not the WP, that's six hours (exactly, as I found out work outside in the cold).

Chances are you have a failed fan bearing, so will need to replace the bracket, and there is almost no chance the belt tensioner is still good unless recently replaced, so figure on that, too.

Rad can stay in, no problem.

As Jim said, this isn't that difficult, just tedious.

Inspect the poly-v belt, too -- they aren't very expensive, so I'd replace that too unless it's almost brand new and in excellent shape, you must remove it anyway.

If you don't have the CD, either get it or let me know and I will try to email you the appropriate pages, makes the job much easier.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

You guys rule.
No I don't have the CD. If you could e-mail me any and all appropriate literature, I'd sure appreciate it.
I spent some time today checking out my situation and idenitying parts. Yes, you are correct in your assesments... it is my fan bearing. After I removed the shroud and the fan itself, (which was just sitting in there) I put my finger in the hole where the fan once mounted. Loose ball bearings fell out on the ground beneith the car. Let me ask you... it appears that the fan bearing is pressed in a plate that mounts to the front of the block (where the water pump is in most any other car). When I remove that mounting plate, will I find any other moving parts such as a timing belt? The reason I ask is because I don't want to find that there are ball bearings inside to interfere with that.
As far as the tensioner goes, I will replace that as well as the belt itself. I don't like to do jobs twice. I just need to identify that piece and then find the time to do all this...
Please send any instruction pages to kyled@gmx.net
Thanks again. I couldn't do it without you!
Any other pieces that I should replace while I'm at it?

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Kyle De Priest
2007 e320 Bluetec
2013 GLK 250 Bluetec

When you purchase a new fan bearing bracket you will see how it fastens to the front of the block. If I were doing this job and it were my car I would replace all the idler pulleys along with the tensioner pulley, tensioner and I think yours has the tensioner shock - replace it too.

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Jim

Having done the bearing bracket replacement twice (once after I did the head on my '86 300E and getting a little too enthusiastic in cleaning the parts and accidentally cleaning all the grease out of the fan bearing, and again shortly thereafter when my girlfriend rear ended somebody and munched the same part), I am happy to share a few tricks. I also have the CD and the printed manual, and unless this is the only job you ever plan to do on this motor, I highly recommend spending the $175 or so on the CD's.

To do the whole bearing bracket job, the radiator will have to come out, I think. It just clips in. I'll start by telling you how to pull the fan and clutch with the radiator still in, though, just so you can look around to see what you're in for -- in case you want to bail out there and either get the book or some help.

To pull the fan and clutch, take the plastic cover off the distributor cap, undo the cap (two hex screws), move the cap aside, move the coolant overflow hose, and then just unclip the little flat clips holding the fan shroud and push it over the fan towards the rear of the car to get it out of the way.

Now the tricky part. Just one more bolt to go, but its a tricky one. The fan clutch is held by one big 8mm hex head bolt in the middle of the fan with a lot of torque on it. With so little clearance between the front of the fan and the rear of the radiator, you'll find there's no room for a hex socket and driver, so you need to use a regular 'L' shaped hex wrench, putting the stubby end into the bolt and slipping something over the long end for leverage (this bolt is torqued to 45nm).

To turn this bolt, you need a way to keep the assembly from spinning, and MB tells you to do this with a special tool (counter holder 103 589 00 40 00) that looks like a long stiff maybe 1/8" diameter rod with the business end bent into a short 1 inch 'L' (like 80 degrees). I made one myself by just bending up a long tool holder hook off my pegboard and grinding the end a bit. I've heard of others substituting an allen wrench of the appropriate size for the business end (to get the 'L' shape), then stuffing the long end of the allen wrench into a piece of stiff rubber tubing to give the tool the reach required.

With your special-tool-of-choice, you need to turn the fan clutch assembly by hand with the 8mm wrench until the hole in the back of the fan clutch aligns with a little groove formed by two ridges cast into the bearing bracket, then you slip the end of the tool into the hole so that the ridges hold the tool in place and lock the pulley in place. Having the new bearing bracket is a huge help because you can just look and see how it works to slip the wire tool into the groove and through the hole to lock the assembly.

Once its locked, you just unscrew the 8mm center bolt and off comes the fan and clutch and you can see what you're in for.

To to the rest of the job and get that fan bearing bracket off, you'll have pull the radiator and remove the three pulleys on the front of the motor (the one where the fan was, the convex one on the power steering pump, and one other). Then you have to pull the hot water return line that is screwed to the timing cover. Then you have to move the big three legged spider shaped bracket out of the way. I think I was able to just loosen the big middle bolt, and then remove the bolts on the three ends of the legs and swivel the three legged spider out of the way. It is *crucial* on reassembly that when you put the bolt back through the hole on the longest leg of the spider (goes through the timing cover) that you dab some sealant on the front and rear of the hole in the bracket.

I think once the spider is out of the way, that you can clearly see the bolts holding the bracket in place. The only other things you might need to fiddle with to get the bracket clear are to loosen some bolts and swivel the power steering pump a bit, and I think unbolt and move the TDC sensor.

It isn't a horrible job. I think I paid $179 for my new bracket.

Oh... after carefully describing how to remove the fan to get a look around, I now reread that yours has conveniently deinstalled itself. No worry, you still need the "special-tool-of-choice" tricks to lock the assembly when you *reinstall* the fan and *tighten* that same bolt, because if you don't get some torque on it, it will come loose.

Thanks for all the details! I think Wednesday afternoon is my day to begin exploritory surgery. I do have a book, but it's not super informative. I'm good at improvising for special tools, so thanks for the tips on the "special tool" modifications.

I'll let you know how it goes once I'm there!

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Kyle De Priest
2007 e320 Bluetec
2013 GLK 250 Bluetec

JOB IS DONE! I finished it a few days ago with new parts from mercedesshop.com's fastlane. It went a lot quicker than I thought it would. I figured I'd work on it over the course of 2 evenings after work, but after I got the damn fan belt on, everything else just snapped on. Easy!
Thanks for all your help and advice. I couldn't have done it without you!

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Kyle De Priest
2007 e320 Bluetec
2013 GLK 250 Bluetec

I just replaced the water pump on my 89 300e last week. If you have a good mechincal sense about you then I imagine you can do it. I am nothing more than a shade tree mechanic myself.
It takes some getting to thugh. You'll have to remove the radiator and fan. You'll have to remove the belt tennisioner befor you can get to the water pump. It's only 4 bolts but there kinda hard t get to . You'll definetly need extensions and swivels. I would also replace the small hose between the water pump and the thermostat. It usually starts to bulge out.
It's an all day job if it's your first one.
I found a new waterpump for 150. dollars through a salvage yard. I think german star has them for around 140 plus shiping
good luck

It's not a bad job, as these things go, just lots of parts. The waterpump on the W115 diesel with AC is worse.

Just takes some time, lots of bits.

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!