I have an apparant coolant leak at the right rear of the engine that has grown worse lately. It has been consuming coolant for about two years at the rate of about 1 qt. every 6 months or 5,000 miles. I could never figure out where it was going until recently it has increased to about a qt. a month or around 1,000 miles. I was under the car changing the oil and in slides the Wife to spot the green drip at the right rear of the engine. It had been atomizing from the heat of the manifold and not leaving much of a trace. Now it's real obvious.
My question is at 105K miles is this a common problem and is it usually the head gasket? I've replaced head gaskets on other vehicles but I'm pretty sure this will be tougher than my 56' ford truck or my flathead forklift motor. I am speculating it will be more like replacing the engine in my airplane was.
Please let me know your experiances and the possible solutions to this problem. My wife loves her C-220 and I haven't found the lottery #'s yet to buy the CLS 550 she deserves.
Some people on club202.com have done it on their 6's themselves. The 4 should be easier. With a 220, the Haynes w2020 manual is going to be very helpful since it targets the 4 cyl version. Definitely worth the $30 investment!
It's like you read my mind. That was going to be my next question as to printed directions. I had now idea there was a manual available that was so reasonable, I'm all over that! I'll be posting some pictures for others on this repair when I do it.
A couple of hundred bucks is cheaper than a CLS 550.
FYI, I ordered mine from one of the sidebar sellers on the Amazon page for the book. Amazon wanted weeks to ship. This guy had it in stock and was located in FL. The book is hardcover but the pages are printed on newsprint which is really cheap/thin.
You might want to invest in a copy of the MB WIS off of ebay. 5 GB of HD is needed and it is clunky to use. Make sure to get a newer Windows version 2007 or newer release.
I have an apparant coolant leak at the right rear of the engine that has grown worse lately. It has been consuming coolant for about two years at the rate of about 1 qt. every 6 months or 5,000 miles. I could never figure out where it was going until recently it has increased to about a qt. a month or around 1,000 miles. I was under the car changing the oil and in slides the Wife to spot the green drip at the right rear of the engine. It had been atomizing from the heat of the manifold and not leaving much of a trace. Now it's real obvious.
My question is at 105K miles is this a common problem and is it usually the head gasket? I've replaced head gaskets on other vehicles but I'm pretty sure this will be tougher than my 56' ford truck or my flathead forklift motor. I am speculating it will be more like replacing the engine in my airplane was.
Please let me know your experiances and the possible solutions to this problem. My wife loves her C-220 and I haven't found the lottery #'s yet to buy the CLS 550 she deserves.
C as in 220
I had a defective Head Gasket on one my Ford Thunderbird/V-6 and because I delayed getting it fixed, the Engine finally starting cracking and the Engine Cracked. Be Forewarned-if you delay this a moment longer, you will start to cause
serious mechanical damage to your engine and your wallet.
__________________
Charles Orlando, Florida United States of America
I guess the short answer is also the dumb one, and that is: I did not know it was that critical on this car. It had green in it when we bought the car three years ago and I have all the dealer service records since new so I didn't have any reason to think that was taboo. What it has in it is a 50/50 mix of prestone for alum. engines and distilled water. I guess I'll be flushing the coolant before I do the head gasket.
Ok, I checked the bottle of Prestone that I used and it claims that it can be mixed with any color coolant (yea right) and is for ALL alum. engines and makes and models of cars. It is also NOT Green persee. It is mostly straw colored with a slight tint of green to it. It's nothing like other dark green coolants. It does say that it is ethalyne glycol based. If this is a bozo no no I guess I'd better flush and replace with Zerex or M/B on the double.
Hello C as in 220
Thanks for your advice earlier on - much appreciated.
I had to replace the head gasket on my '82 230E a few years back and even though it was quite a long job it was not too difficult. The biggest schlep was removing the dowel that held the timing chain tensioner in place and I also made the mistake of trying to remove the inlet manifold with with the fuel injection before removing the head. This was an impossible task as there was not enough room to get it off. I ended up removing the head complete with inlet manifold and FI.
Good luck. Hope you come right. MB's are really nice to work on.
Headgasket leaking coolant? YIKES!!! 
I have an apparant coolant leak at the right rear of the engine that has grown worse lately. It has been consuming coolant for about two years at the rate of about 1 qt. every 6 months or 5,000 miles. I could never figure out where it was going until recently it has increased to about a qt. a month or around 1,000 miles. I was under the car changing the oil and in slides the Wife to spot the green drip at the right rear of the engine. It had been atomizing from the heat of the manifold and not leaving much of a trace. Now it's real obvious.
That was going to be my next question as to printed directions. I had now idea there was a manual available that was so reasonable, I'm all over that! I'll be posting some pictures for others on this repair when I do it.
It had green in it when we bought the car three years ago and I have all the dealer service records since new so I didn't have any reason to think that was taboo. What it has in it is a 50/50 mix of prestone for alum. engines and distilled water. I guess I'll be flushing the coolant before I do the head gasket.
Linear Mode
