I was thinking it was a direct leak of oil out the cooler but further
examination shows that the oil/coolant mixing is a failure mode as
well. This car's coolant looked fine and the tank was mostly full so I
doubt if any was blowing out, I forgot to look at the oil filler cap
(stupid me) but there was no smoke from the exhaust while the car was
running so that is a good sign.
This guy who worked for the owner had put the car on the lift and
snapped a pic of the underside which he said showed the leak. I
actually could not see any oil leaking but he said it was leaking down
on the right bank exhaust. When I fired the car up I could smell a bit
of hot oil on the driver (left) side but not much smoke (my CL600 is
REALLY dripping and smoking a lot from the drip onto the downpipe and
cat). That made me wonder if the engine had oil in it to leak, I did
not have my generic dipstick with me. This is what got me thinking it
was the valve cover gasket and maybe the owner of the car was being
really paranoid about it. These guys did not really know anything about
the engine, and the Irish mech owner said he had no interest in dealing
with it.
The car's owner is a friend of his, sounds like he might have thrown a
lot of money at it over the years. As far as the $3k goes that is not
unreasonable as there were four nearly new Michelins on staggered AMG
wheels, the hydraulics were all working, that stuff is worth good money
if parted out. I told him I would hate to see that but that is a
reality as well. But it was also a very good-looking car.
I'll keep in touch with the guy and work it some more. I could become
the M137 oil leak guru.
--FT
On 4/20/23 4:54 PM, dan penoff.com via Mercedes wrote:
And more to the topic - Floyd, do you know if these oil coolers fail by leaking
into the cooling system, or vice-versa, or just leaking (oil) externally?
I’ve never researched it, but the few things I’ve seen suggest that it’s an
internal failure of the cooler rather than an external one.
-D
--
--FT
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