MBDiesel.net - An Owner's Journey

We installed the second axle this evening, and replaced the differential mount (Donna purchased the 22mm socket this afternoon on her way home). No more clunks, clucks, bangs, or anything else. The wagon rides smoother, sits higher in the rear, and flows down the road better. Can't ask for more than that!

The 300TD is one axle away from cruising the streets again

A write-up of our recent clutch slave cylinder episode can be found here.

Recently on a Mercedes-related (term used loosely) mailing list, I got into a somewhat heated discussion/argument over the topic of hydroplaning and wet roads. Some made the argument that there are several contributing factors in the event that a car hydroplanes, while I staunchly held my position that hydroplaning is 100% the responsibility of the driver and is independent of the car - regardless of the prevailing road conditions, the car's tendencies for oversteer/understeer, or the car's mechanical condition.

Some people where quick to blame vehicle condition as the primary culprit. Sure, worn tires can certainly contribute - low tread means not much space for water to be displaced. That's why passenger car tires have tread patterns. It's not for traction, it's for water displacement. Better traction would be achieved with NO tread grooves. Over the last few years, I smiled every time someone mentioned that they paid a large chunk of change for Goodyear Aquatreds - Goodyear found a marketing ploy that worked and sold a heckuva lot of tires. Are Aquatreads any better than any other tire in wet conditions? Not according to this test, and several others I've come across over the years. But I digress.

Others blame the roads. Here in the Atlanta area, and I'm certain it happens everywhere else, the first rain after a long dry spell turns the local high-speed thoroughfares into an automotive icecapade. The oils that have built up and soaked into the road surface are evicted by the heaven-sent moisture, and it seems that everyone with 2 brain cells and a set of car keys forgot what happened the last time this happened. Rush hour traffic becomes rush-evening traffic, and things like 3 hour commutes just to cross town become the norm. And god forbid should that rainstorm happen on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.

The way I look at it, you can't come up with a single factor involved in hydroplaning that can't squarely be put on the shoulders of the driver who screwed up big time. Tires low on tread? Not the car's fault. The driver should have A) better maintained the car, or at least B) slowed waaaaaay down. And if the road conditions are exacerbated by that cursed slippery oil film, slow down even more!

I'm beginning to become an old fogey about some of these things, I guess. I feel like every time I encounter the rampant driver stupidity I see every single day, I'm that old man in the neighborhood yelling "Get out of my rose garden!" or "Slow down! This is a neighborhood!" Drivers today simply do not have the knowledge, the training, or the skill to adequately handle any road conditions other than 75?F, dry, sunny, with light traffic.

While I have a great disdain for speed limits and disregard them to a point that "do as I say, not as I do" would be an even bigger joke than it already is, I need to use them to help make an example. Fellow "professional" speeders, bear with me, there is a point to be made:

A roadway with a posted limit of 70mph is posted as the maximum speed allowed for overall good driving conditions. If your car's brake, steering, or suspension systems are not in good shape, if your tires are worn, if you are riding around on that little rinky-dink donut-sized spare tire, if it's raining, sleeting, hailing, snowing, if it's dark and your headlights are improperly aimed, you have no business driving 70mph. Period!

Any one of those factors means you are not driving in overall good driving conditions - your driving conditions are impaired. If you persist at overdriving the conditions your car is capable of, you are a danger to yourself, your passengers, and the other motorists on the road. If you are driving at the abilities of your car, but an outside influence worsens the conditions, it is your responsibility to adjust to these new condition so that you are no longer overdriving your car.

Now what about the driver?

The driver controls the car - at all times. The car never loses control - it's a machine - unfeeling, uncaring, unblinking. And don't give me that crap about "well, my car has traction control" or "my car is drive-by-wire" - you are still the driver, and it's your car. The car will always do what you tell it to do - even if it's not in your (or the car's) better interests. As many a 16 year old with a smashed up WRX can tell you, lifting off the throttle in a turn that you took a little hot is not a good way to avoid that tree. Look up throttle-lift oversteer while you are getting your repair estimates, Francis.

It is the driver's responsibility to determine their car's handling tendencies - to know them, to understand them, to anticipate them. Every one of my cars handle differently. It is my job to drive each car according to it's own personal handling profile - if I drive the 300TD while thinking about the handling of the 280S, I stand a greater chance of having an accident, and possibly injuring myself or others.

The comeback to this argument was - what did I want, every driver be required to take their car on a skid pad? I never said that - but it's a damn good idea. Maybe it should be harder to get a driver's license. Maybe the testing should be more involved. Maybe it should require hours of private instruction (paid for out of pocket), with many laps on a complicated road course and a skid pad exercise to show that the driver can deal with over/understeer without becoming a liability to everyone else.

Too many drivers are unexperienced in adverse conditions these days. Too many newer cars provide so little driver feedback to be of any use to a novice driver. And the general public doesn't seem to care. Little Johnny wraps his Mustang around a telephone pole coming home from a party one rainy night, and it's always the CAR that hydroplaned and sent him off the road - it couldn't POSSIBLY be Johnny's fault - even though he was driving 10 over the posted limit, at night, in the rain, with tires worn to the wear bars. That couldn't possibly have contributed to Johnny failing to see that puddle of standing water in the middle of the road. You know, that puddle of water that he would have seen and been able to safely avoid or negotiate if he had not been overdriving the conditions.

Oh no. It was the car, that nasty, mean, terrible-handling piece of garbage that got little Johnny all banged up. Not his lack of training. Not his lack of knowledge of his vehicle's overall mechanical condition. Not his lack of intelligence to apply his skill and his knowledge of his vehicle to the conditions of the road. Nope, that car hydroplaned, and Johnny was just along for the ride.

After all, cars are supposed to magically transport us in complete safety from point A to point B, right? Who wants to deal with responsibility - it's just a car!

This weekend's adventure involved the clutch slave cylinder in the 240D. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, the bolts holding it in backed out. A lot. I went to downshift from 4th to 3rd coming down the hill leading to Donna's parent's house, and we were subjected to a loud pop, noises of things bouncing around underneath the car, and a clutch pedal that found a new home on the floor. We coasted into the driveway, shut off the car, and then started the car in gear to make it up to the house.

Diagnosis the following the morning revealed that nothing was holding the clutch slave cylinder in place (but the holes weren't stripped out - hooray!), and the innards of the cylinder were now on the outside of the body. And the boot was torn and leaking brake fluid. Joy.

I knew I had a spare slave at home, but I didn't know if it was the right one or not - there's a VIN break in the 219000's or thereabouts in w123s. We borrowed a car to drive home, pick up the spare, and bring it back. Once back under the car, I discovered that the bad unit was the later type, and the spare I had was the earlier type. A little playing with the bolts and some washers (found at the local hardware store in Hamilton, GA), and I figured I had a decent shot of getting the car home under it's own power on Sunday.

It wasn't pretty to look at, but it worked - because here we sit. Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as I have the proper unit in-hand for replacement.

Last Friday, I took the wagon to Birmingham to pick up some friends, and then we all travelled to Mobile to help a mutual friend move across town. After the Ruston trip, piece of cake, huh?

Nope.

Late Saturday afternoon in downtown Mobile, the wagon ate the alternator/water pump v-belt. Fortunately, I was able to pull over quickly enough to avoid an overheat. Even more fortunately, I didn't like the looks of that belt a couple weeks ago and ordered a spare set of v-belts to carry around. An hour or so later, the wagon was back on the road.

Ever since the Florida trip, I've been keeping an eye on the driver's side axle. It started to cluck on the way back - not that I blame it, because there was nearly a half-ton of tools and miscellaneous hardware in the cargo area. Once unloaded, the cluck went away. It didn't reappear on the Ruston trip, either. But every once in a while in Mobile, I'd hear it complain.

Unfortunately, it was a diversion.

At exit 199 on I-20 eastbound in Alabama, I pulled off the interstate to fuel up for the final push into Georgia and home, and heard a terrible racket from the rear of the car. After I fueled up, I took a look underneath the wagon to check the axle. Nothing out of the ordinary there - wait, what's that puddle? I hope it's not the diff!

I moved to the rear of the wagon, and the puddle was noticeably off-center on the passenger side. Further, the underside of the fuel tank, the vacuum reservoir, and the bumper were covered in a film of grease. The hatch had tons of droplets of grease all over it. A further look from the passenger side revealed the culprit - a torn boot that was leaking out all the axle grease.

At that point, I did what any normal person would have done - called home and said I hoped to make it there without a tow truck. The next signpost said 78 miles to Atlanta, and I asked the wagon to get me at least that far. I knew it was a bit more than that to get home, but 78 miles would get me in Atlanta, with a safety net of more wrecker companies and quicker pick-ups from friends if I ended up stranded. Around mile 55, the axle was making a terrible noise at all RPMs. I'd already slowed my speed down to well below the posted limit to try and maximize the distance I could make, but at that moment, it didn't seem like I'd make it much further. I pulled off the road, took another look at the axle, and decided that at the very least, any more miles I got out of the axle was that much cheaper the tow bill would be.

The axle never made another noise. 92.4 miles from discovering the wrecked boot, the wagon brought me home on a dry joint.

Some people wonder why we own these old cars. For me, it's simple - I take care of them, and they take care of me. I've never once been stranded by one of these cars for any other reason than a bone-headed decision on my part. Sure, I could have ignored the belt conditions and been stranded in Mobile - but that wouldn't have been the car's fault. The torn boot wasn't anything prevalent before either the Ruston trip or the Mobile trip - it simply happened. But the car got me home. The car did it's part, I did mine.

I guess the end result of the tale is that I'll probably have an axle replacement page up pretty soon. Until then, the 280S is ferrying me back and forth to work. Check back soon, the 300TD will be back on the road before you know it!

Back from Ruston with our annual assortment of a bushel of Ruston Red peaches. The wagon performed beautifully - oil consumption at speeds greater than 75mph was higher than anticipated, but fuel economy with 4 people, all their stuff, a dog, and 2.5 bushels of peaches at speeds between 70-75mph was routinely 26 miles per gallon and up. Last fill-up showed 27 - pretty impressive!

I found out that the pictures of last year's trip to Ruston weren't linked on the wagon's subpage, so I included a link to them as well as this year's photos. I apologize for the scarcity of photos this year, but I really didn't have the opportunity to take as many as I would have liked.

But on to the photos!

2005's trip.

2006's trip.

The wagon received an oil change tonight, one of the last things remaining on the list of things to do before our annual trip to Ruston, LA. Donna spent Thursday detailing the paintwork, and the car looks gorgeous. I need to take some photos! We still need to clean the interior a bit, and I want to try and get the car to Gran Turismo for an alignment before we head out.

Mat gave me a driver's side mirror that I will probably install on the 280S tomorrow - the mirror on that car has been badly warped as long as I've owned it. I call it the funhouse mirror because it's completely useless for actually looking at traffic in your blindspot. I'm actually used to it and just turn my head and look, but having a worthwhile mirror is always helpful.

The 280S and the 240D enjoyed an oil change this past Saturday.

The timing chain tensioner in the 240D has been getting quite noisy and is bleeding pressure rather quickly when the engine was turned off, so I contacted Metric Motors, and a replacement tensioner is on the way.

The 280S has been chugging along quite well recently. Need to pull the carb at some point and clean it out - still!

Also, we swapped out the driver's seat bottom in the 300TD - no more tear in the middle, no more broken spring, and much better padding! Still trying to get used to it...

The new car made it home just fine on Sunday. Before we left Huntsville, we changed the belts and one transmission cooler line - the other was already replaced with the newer style spring-wrapped line.

Today, it's off to the DMV to register the car. If time and light permits, I'll snap a few photos and post them!