Hi Skylaw,
I have gone ahead and removed the black sealant to investigate what the status of my upper seal condition is. The previous video where I test for a leak, seemed to indicate that there was major leaking around the brass valve. i was surprised to find that the leaking actually comes from the area where the steel (silver colour) ring doesn't meet around the sides of the steel cap. In reading the technical spec from mercedes, and from my initial investigation of removing the black sealant, I am convinced that the black sealant has the purpose of not allowing for air leaks - in other words, the black sealant was supposed to fix the faulty steel cap's apparent lack of a rubber ring, and a steel ring with a 1 cm "short" circumference.
I won't be doing the plummer job with solder, to avoid having to heat the areas, etc, and probably not getting good pressure sealing. But I have decided to simply remove the black sealant, clean the surfaces very well, removing the black paint from the strut and polishing the top of the steel cap, to then place a good mult-metal epoxy, capable of withstanding a good range of temperatures and pressures. (in this case, -40F to +350F or -40C to +176C, and up to 3500psi). Being a newbie, and knowing that a video is worth a million words, here are a few uploaded to youtube. I will be testing the application tomorrow morning, and will let you know how it goes!
hope they prove useful! (not edited, so some ffwding may be necessary at times)
step 1 (previous video uploaded)
YouTube - mercedes benz S500 upper front strut leak test
new videos:
YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-2-removing black sealant YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-3-concluding place of air escape YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-4-verifying air escape and brass valve YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-5-comparing driver and passanger sides YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-6-removing plastic hose YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-7-removing brass valve YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-8-cleaning surface for epoxy YouTube - 2002 mercedes S500 airmatic fix-test - step-9-applying epoxy
