I pulled my 98 e300 in the shop yesterday for what was supposed to be a simple
belt shock replacment. I knew the hole was stripped out so I already had the
proper size helicoil on hand. I drilled out the hole, tapped it and inserted
the helicoil. Put it all back together and after running a few minutes the damn
shock popped of the rubber mounting. This was a stabilus from autohaus az but
not the dealer part which j guess is supposed to be better even though it is
made by stabilus. So I took the bolt back out and the helicoil came out with
the bolt. So I drilled it again, tapped and put new coil in. For some reason
bolt was somewhat hard to turn then snapped off all the sudden flush with the
head. Great. So I pull the radiator. Spend all morning drilling on the bolt. At
one point broke off a drill bit in the hole but managed to get it out. Finally
get it drilled out enough to then drill the final hole size for the helicoil
tap. Do that. Install another coil and for some reason even though the hole was
drilled and tapped and the coil is the right size the bolt will not thread in,
it's like the hole is just slightly too small. So I pull the coil out, drilled
again, tapped again, ran it down and all the sudden the tap breaks! When it
does the only thing I can figure is the other price shot off the wrench and the
punctured the condenser, I start rapidly losing the entire ac charge. So at
this point the car is screwed. Now needs a new condenser also. How the heck am
I going to get this hardened tap out of the hole? There is another slightly
smaller hole right next to the shock hole, I wonder if I can just bolt it to
that hole? I am concerned with it rattling though since the bolt is slightly
smaller. This is a nightmare. There is nothing further I can do with this car
at the moment until I figure out how to extract this tap and get a new
condenser here. I guess I should now start on the glow plug project for my 97
but I suspect it's got dorm fuel leaks that need to be replaced while its apart
and I don't have the parts for it.
Sent from my iPhone
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