After scraping the hood down for the future hood pad installation, I began to do the thermostat swap.
Despite Curly’s warnings about it being tight, it was really easy to get to from below. The bottom bolt came right out with minimal effort and the top bolt was actually easier to break loose from above and then run it out by hand from below. Start to finish it took me under 30 minutes. One thing I did find that I’ve never encountered before on a Mercedes: I went to install the thermostat, and being attentive to the position of the bleed valve, I attempted to insert the thermostat with the bleed valve facing up, as I have on every other engine I’ve ever replaced a thermostat on. It wouldn’t go in. Strange. I compared it to the old thermostat, and noticed that there is a cutout in the part of the thermostat that is the main metal disc. I looked in the thermostat housing, and sure enough, there is a projection on the inside of the housing that interfaces with this notch. I rotated the thermostat to align with the notch, and in it went. I did note that the bleed valve was now positioned around the 3:00 o’clock position when the housing was bolted up to the engine. Other than that I took note that the car had the evil green stuff in it, which was strange, as it didn’t look green in the reservoir. I filled it back up with water, because this is Florida. I’ll drive it tomorrow a little, drain it out, fill it with water again, drain it, then put the good MB stuff (which is now blue) in it along with a bottle of WaterWetter. After that was done I took the car for a short drive around the neighborhood. The temp came right up to 85C, spiked up to about 110C for a minute, then came right back down to 85C and stayed there like the needle was nailed in place. This proves that the old thermostat was definitely toast, as it wouldn’t get to 85C if I drove it with my foot to the floor for 3-4 miles. It would also drop down to 60C when I came to a stop or idled for more than a minute or two. After all this was done it was time for some fun stuff. I pulled the aftermarket radio nightmare and the ACC panel as the ACC unit had a lamp out. Replaced the lamp and got the panel back in place. Installed an ashtray I snagged on eBay in what remains of the opening for it. Nothing to anchor it to, as the black plastic bar that goes across the bottom of the opening is gone. Once that was in place I got the aftermarket radio jammed in the radio opening with nothing holding it in place. his is also due to the hack who put the radio in cutting out the plastic “box” all everything that went with it to install the aftermarket radio. I’m not sure what, of anything, I can do to restore some of the stuff they cut out. At least for now it looks stock again and doesn’t have the gosh awful box the radio was installed in. Had some stainless steel screws for the license plate but they were too small. I got #8s and looks like they’re #10s. Trip to the Ace tomorrow. Dan _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
