Yup this happened to me with my 73 220D. Definitely voltage regulator. On that car it is a separate unit. On yours, considering the problems that you are describing you might be better off just buying a factory reconditioned Bosch alternator. Try Rusty at buymbparts.com
--- On Sat, 2/21/09, Fmiser <[email protected]> wrote: From: Fmiser <[email protected]> Subject: [MBZ] Stinky car To: "Mercedes list" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009, 12:09 AM I have had an odd experience this last week. I take my '82 240D the car on a 250 mile trip. 10 miles into it I notice a terrible stink! Sort of like fried eggs that sat in the sun and spoiled. Toward the end of the of the trip I notice my two-way radios have an alternator whine in the receive audio. The stink had now gotten so bad that when I fueled, just standing down-wind of the car was unpleasant. I tried to figure out where the smell was coming from. It sort of seemed to be coming out the heater vents, but not really. It also seemed to be worse sitting still than on the highway. I had no clues - so I ignored it! *grin* My wife took the car a couple days later. If anything, the stink was worse. When she got home, I park the car outside with the doors open to air it out. I decided to spray lysol into the heater air intake to maybe do something about the smell. I ended up replacing the starboard wiper blade pivot. No, that had nothing to do with the stick! But to get to the intake, I pulled off the wiper box cover. While doing that I discovered the drain for that pivot had clogged and the pivot housing was in _really_ bad shape. 10 minutes later I had a one pulled from my private parts yard. I spray a bunch of Lysol in the intake, ran the fan, and put it all back together again. Still no conclusive data on the source of the smell. A couple days later later the car won't start. No, it's not from having the doors open while airing it out. Good guess though - I turned off the dome lights. The block heater was plugged in and it wasn't very cold. A jump start got it going. Turned it off once in the middle of the 60 mile trip and it cranked slow when it started - but it did start. Didn't turn it off for the other stops. *smile* Well, a stink I'll ignore, but not starting is a bit more serious. And I have toy - er, _tool_ to help track down the problem. There has been a bit of "no start" history with this car. About 2 month ago I had a bad solenoid on the starter on this 240D. Since then it's been starting fine. Then about 2 weeks ago it didn't start. Maybe I left the trunk open too long, or something like that. Most annoying was the fact I was 700 miles away and it wasn't me that had to use the old truck to jumpstart. The interior light turned on, the glow relay click, but that's about all it would do. Less than 5 minutes on the jumper cables (4 AWG) and it started fine. Fast forward. First step in a no start is to check battery voltage. 4.9!!! No wonder it didn't start! Hook up the charger to the 4 year old battery. About an hour later I disconnect the changer, let it rest for a couple minutes and check the voltage again. 5.2 Volts. About then I notice a bubbling sound from the battery. I start to get a glimmer... I lean over to make sure that's where the sound is coming from. I happen to breath in. (I do that rather often...) The stinky smell!!!! It's the battery!! I open the vent caps to see the "water" level. It's so low on _every_ cell I can't see _any_ liquid. So did the battery just die, or did the voltage regulator kill it? With a jump, I started the car and measured 17 V at idle. I _seriously_ overcharged battery, boiled to death!! About 8 months ago the brushes wore out and I replaced the brush/regulator assembly. Oh well. I removed the screws and found that one ear had broken off, the other was cracked. So the problem was a mechanical failure. I have a new-in-the box regulator/brush unit on the shelf, so stuck it in. I noticed that it didn't seat all the way in when the screw holes lined up. It's a 240, so there's a lot of room under the hood compared to a 300 turbo - but still not enough to see, so I remove the alternator. With it sitting on the work bench with bright overhead lights I could see the hole in the alternator housing wasn't big enough for the protrusions on the bottom of the brush unit. In other words, it didn't fit! I wanted a second opinion. I got that from one of the parts cars. Same thing. And both of these were shaped the same as the now-broken one. What to do? What I did was took the parts car part and a file and grind wheel and made it fit. And I bought a new battery... So the moral of the story is, check your windshield wiper drain to make sure it's not plugged. Actually, I'm guessing the alternator must have come from an older car and the regulators are _almost_ interchangeable. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://okiebenz.com/pipermail/mercedes_okiebenz.com/attachments/20090220/7b9c65a0/attachment.html> _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
