We just had temps start dropping below freezing here. While it normally stays within a few degrees around freezing we do usually get a week or two each winter of around -40. Even a half hour with a block heater plugged in works wonders for starting and getting heat inside asap. As far as I know Canadian ML's came with block heaters standard. I can't find the power cable or the block heater. I've looked at the locations suggested in this post http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w163...ml#post1678247 but found nothing. According to WIS the cable should be up by the battery but there is nothing there as well. I even re-ran my vin and it does show the 460 options group which I believe includes the block heater.
So does anyone know where to look? Is this a block plug type heater or is it the one that looks like it is in the rad hoses?
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I know the voices aren't real but man do they ever come up with great ideas.
I don't see anything there or anywhere else. It snowed last night so will see about getting it on a lift to finish other things and will be able to have a better look.
Do you know yours is a heater that sits in a freeze plug hole or if it is that external type? I looked at a few of the part places and noticed the northern ones had the freeze plug type while the southern ones had the hose heater thing.
As much as I"d like to help you dave I'm 1000 km from my ML.
All I know is its -22 at home right now but it will start cause its plugged in. Is it in the WIS?
Not to worry we typically sit right around freezing all winter. It hit -10 then other night though and it still spun over and started like it was summer. And today its just south of freezing. Just would like to know its in there and works even if I never use it.
If nothing else today I figured out how to make sure the cel light works. You just need slushy snow a heavy right foot and a bit of a four wheel drift.
Somebody posted all the part numbers for the OE M-B engine heater; it's on my "to do" list because we're driving up to Fairbanks this winter just to say we did. The OE heater is a circulating coolant heater that mounts in the lower hose. With a well-tuned engine using synthetic oil, you're probably wasting electricity if you plug in when it is above 0F, but you're doing "nice" things for polution and stuff if you plug in or have it thermostatically controlled at +20F, that's what the EPA likes here. Unless you just really like to pay electric bills, all you need is a couple of hours of heat before you start it, so a timer is a really good investment. For those of you with truly arctic temps, there are battery blankets that you can wire in with the engine heater and a grill cover is a really good investment. There's a Canadian outfit that makes a combo winter grill cover, summer bug screen that works good in my part of the World. Even with the electric aux coolant pump in sub-zero temps the heating system can give you some pretty good temperature swings so reducing the air flow through the grill helps even that out.
In my experience, with the zero weight oil as long as the vehicle is in good tune it will be fine for eight to twelve hours in sub-zero temps. What you really don't want is to let a vehicle get really "cold-soaked" in sub-zero temperature. If that happens and you don't have an engine heater to get it warm again, it is a real bi*ch to get an engine that cold to start; we're talking camping stoves under the oil pan and stuff unless you can tow it into a warm garage. Don't ask me how I know.
Had a '68 Porsche 911. Put it away for winter in Oct-Nov sometime. Put the cover on it and left it for the winter. My winter beater truck died and the only car I had was the Porsche which had been sitting in the cold for three months or so with 40 weight oil in the crankcase and, worse, the dry sump tank. Got the Primus stoves out and lit a fire under the crankcase and the oil tank. Took six or eight hours but finally got it warm enough to turn over and light. Damned thing was hard to start under the best of circumstances. The 46 IDA Webers didn't have chokes so you just pumped the accellerator pumps until you got enough gas to light it but not enough to flood it; delicate balance.
I have checked my truck briefly and couldn't find the plug for the block heater also.
Decoded my VIN and it also has the 460 for Canadian Market but no wire or plug near the airbox nor underneath the front bumper.
I did remember read a post from another thread that you need to purchase the plug does that mean I have a get a factory part and mate into some kind of outlet from the block?
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