Job1: Wake up the motor from an 11 year nap

It's not as easy as attach a battery and turn the key when the car has been sitting a long time. The M100 has a pretty delicate fuel injection system that is intolerant of heavy varnish deposits and other debris. A used fuel injection pump can be 500$. I don't even want to think of what a rebuilt one will cost. If the car had been sitting a year or three, I wouldn't be too concerned, but I would probably do all these things early in the ownership.

One thing I am being very careful about is spending money. Not because I don't have it, just because I'd rather spend it on important things, like my 230SL or my 600 (or my two sons and incredibly patient and loving wife who lets me do these things). This car will be added to the list of important things after it proves to me that it's not a parts car.

I am itching to replace lots of parts under the hood, especially the ones I'll be removing here in job 1. Only the worst fastners and consumables are going to be replaced immediately. What this means is that I'm going to do all of this all over again at some point in the future, so I can clean up and make it all "right". If you are paying somebody else, you have to weight the decision to pay 2x labor or 1x labor + parts. The parts will not be cheap, so think about it.

The Immediate Shopping List:

Oil filter.

Gas filter.

Fuel injection cleaner.

Two feet of 9mm fuel injection grade gas line (3/8")

2 Gallons antifreeze

8 quarts motor oil

The List of Things to Do:

Open the hood.

Look under one rocker cover.

Adjust valve clearance.

Replace the gas filter.

Flush the fuel lines.

Clean anything within reach.

Replace the hoses.

Reassembly.

Open the hood, the hard way

Just to make things fun, the hood release cable broke as I was starting to work on the car. It was fine the night I purchased it. The hood release cable has a metal tab fused to the end of it that connects it to a handle. If you're lucky, the cable works "just fine" and isn't rusted into its sleeve. For me, opening the hood now requires some patience and a pair of pliers.

The scrapes on the housing are my fault from using a pair of pliers on the wire w/o first removing the wire from the housing. Note that this housing is unique to cars with air suspension prior to about 1970. There are two bowden cables here; one for the air suspension main control valve and one for the hood. The right thing to do was to remove the housing, free the hood release cable, and then use it to open the hood. For a car w/o air suspension (picture pending), just skip down to step 3. If you insist, a pair of 8mm screws can be removed to free the handle.

1. For this 6.3 (or any car with this control style), remove the two 8mm bolts and leave the 7mm one alone for now.

2. Once the controller is free, you can see why we ignored the 7mm bolt for a bit. You need to hold that 7mm bolt while loosening the nut. Why loosen the nut? Because if you hold a wrench to the pretty outside and turn it, you're going to scrape the paint some more (just like I did).
I found it helpful to remove the chrome trim; you won't have to probably. There are two philips screws that hold it down at top and bottom.

3. Hold the wire firmly with the pliers and give it a gentil push (yes, push). Then pull it a little. Then push it back and pull again. I rocked it back and forth three times before the hood popped.

4. Lots of parts for something so simple. Welcome to Mercedes. The handle is held down to the housing with a standard screw. There is a washer between the housing and the handle. The 7mm nut had a lock washer behind it. The two 8mm screws did not.

5. I prefer a 1/4" socket for little things like these. A 7mm wrench to counter-hold that bolt should have been in this photo. I was able to just use my fingers, so it's not here. A basic pair of pliers is all that's needed for the cable.

With the hood open

We find a fair amount of dust, rust and corrosion. I saw this in the dark on a rainy night when I purchased the car. It's what caused me to take this patient approach to waking the car up. I don't want to discover frozen parts, fused by age. Or at least if there are any, I want to discover them by hand and not with force.

The driver's side of the car doesn't look much better. On a 6.3, this engine compartment is rather crowded. That just adds to the fun.

There are spots that worry me. There's just sooo much surface corrosion. This photo shows the fan shroud (metal on this car; plastic on most others); the upper hose, a really cheezy radiator cap, and corrosion around the water pump.

RockerCoverRemoval

Does this general look match the inside of the motor? If so, it's doomed. Thankfully, this is easy to figure out. I'd say this is about the easiest job I face today; removing a rocker cover. That would be that big bit of cast aluminum staring at us in the prior picture. It's held down with those two bolts on the top (see the rusty spot next to the transmission filler tube?) and a breather hose.

Those hoses are clamped down with a mishmosh of clips. Both a philips and slotted screwdriver should be handy under the hood here. Once the bolts where out, the rocker didn't move. There's a hard rubber gasket under it to act as an oil seal. After 11 years it was corroded in place a bit. A bit of gentil rocking and a few blows to the side with my fist freed it up after a few minutes. Do not hit the rocker cover with a hammer or other hard object. It can crack. A rubber mallet woulda been good but I didn't think of that until just now. Oh well.

The result was worth the wait. A lovely engine on the inside; you just have to get past that gruff exterior. The picture gives us an opportunity to look at the corrosion and rust a little more closely. Just about anything with coolant or near coolant has a while milky film on it. It will be a cause for concern; later, maybe. I'm not going to invest in an upper gasket set to take things apart and clean them up. At least not yet.

Remove the fan

We're going to remove the fan and the radiator. On general principles, the radiator should be boiled out. But on a 6.3, it's in the way of getting to the gas filter. Also, we're going to be hand cranking the motor. This is just a lot simpler with the radiator and the fan out of the way.

to be continued...

-CTH

1. For this 6.3 (or any car with this control style), remove the two 8mm bolts and leave the 7mm one alone for now.
2. Once the controller is free, you can see why we ignored the 7mm bolt for a bit. You need to hold that 7mm bolt while loosening the nut. Why loosen the nut? Because if you hold a wrench to the pretty outside and turn it, you're going to scrape the paint some more (just like I did). I found it helpful to remove the chrome trim; you won't have to probably. There are two philips screws that hold it down at top and bottom.
3. Hold the wire firmly with the pliers and give it a gentil push (yes, push). Then pull it a little. Then push it back and pull again. I rocked it back and forth three times before the hood popped.
4. Lots of parts for something so simple. Welcome to Mercedes. The handle is held down to the housing with a standard screw. There is a washer between the housing and the handle. The 7mm nut had a lock washer behind it. The two 8mm screws did not.
5. I prefer a 1/4" socket for little things like these. A 7mm wrench to counter-hold that bolt should have been in this photo. I was able to just use my fingers, so it's not here. A basic pair of pliers is all that's needed for the cable.