From owner-diesel-benz-digest@digest.net Fri Dec 24 13:49:23 2010 From: diesel-benz-digest diesel-benz-digest Friday, December 24 2010 Volume 01 : Number 3362 Forum for Discussion of Diesel Mercedes Benz Automobiles Derick Amburgey Digest Coordinator Contents: [db] Merry Christmas - grade school video [db] example of a poor design... Re: [db] example of a poor design... Re: [db] example of a poor design... Diesel Benz Digest Home Page: http://www.digest.net/diesel-benz/ Send submissions to diesel-benz-digest@digest.net Send administrative requests to diesel-benz-digest-request@digest.net To unsubscribe, include the word unsubscribe by itself in the body of the message, unless you are sending the request from a different address than the one that appears on the list. Include the word help in a message to stag-digest-request to get a list of other majordomo commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:16:02 +0000 From: dieseljohn@comcast.net Subject: [db] Merry Christmas - grade school video This is very cool ( pun intended : ). Thanx for sharing. Remember the reason for the season; and the King is coming back. Alaskan elementary school holiday video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyviyF-N23A Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:28:31 -0800 (PST) From: john Subject: [db] example of a poor design... I've worked on a lot of cars over the last 40 or so years... I've heard about the problems of the Jettas with the oil pan being kind of low, like about 5" off the ground... protected by a plastic sheet... but what's really bad is they used a cast aluminum oil pan... if they had used a stamped steel pan it would dent, not crack and I wouldn't have dumped six quarts of amsoil synthetic... If I hadn't been running amsoil synthetic I would have to be towed home or would have damaged the engine... I wouldn't dare run low on oil if I was using dino oil... I had one extra quart, poured it in and made it the last three miles home as quick as I could waiting for that terrible idiot light and alarm to come on again ... and it didn't... I pulled the oil pan... at first it looked as though I was going to have to drop the transmission... but luckily I had a 5mm bondus wrench that wobbled just enough to get in there... who designed this thing? a contortionist??? this pan has been off before and someone really gooped it up... and busted a bolt, then glued it back on the pan... :) I'm not sure if I'm even going to mess with it... the pan is rigid enough that one bolt won't cause a leak. http://johnmeister.com/DIESELS/tdi/TDI-oil-pan/ALL.html so, for Christmas Eve I'll be going to the VW dealer in search of a new pan... if they don't have it I'll be heading to pep boys to buy brake cleaner and JB weld. I really need to get that Panzer skid plate installed... mark and I were just talking about how to build the brackets last night. oh, what got me is one of those stupid curbs they put in the middle of the turn lanes to keep you from turning where they don't want you to... problem is it hadn't been there very long and I was trying to turn left into a business where I had before, in the rain and didn't see it until the last minute, went far enough left that I thought I had cleared the pan and hit the control arms... well, I did hit the control arm... but the pan was lower than the control arm and got nailed... not sure what the plastic pan did for me... except hold the oil that was leaking out so I didn't see it right away... and maybe kept the aluminum pan for being completely ripped open. Either this car is cursed or I just picked it up when it needed everything fixed... well, curbs aren't part of the normal maintenance cycle... that was my error... should have it running one way or another tomorrow... guess I'll be wrenching for Christmas eve. :) This is so not the car for me... I need a Jeep or a Mercedes, no more rubber bands for timing or low hanging unprotected parts... You could drive either a Benz or a Jeep over a VW and not suffer any oil pan damage... curbs? bring 'em on... :) john ----- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Snohomish, Washington -o|||||o- where Jeeps don't rust, they mold http://AMSOIL.com/redirect.cgi?zo=283461 si vis pacem, para bellum http://johnmeister.com http://wagoneers.com http://fotomeister.us - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 07:10:19 -0500 From: Michael Frank Subject: Re: [db] example of a poor design... Now let's talk about bad design, as opposed to driver error. In my '88 944, there is an oil cooler. It's a clever design which cools the oil with water by circulating it through a little heat exchanger that sits in a coolant-filled box. Good idea...when the car is cold, the coolant will heat the oil to proper temperature and keep it there when the car gets hot. One small problem...the heat exchanger is held in place with friction, and two viton o-rings are all that separate oil and water. When the rubber begins to fail you get a chocolate milkshake. The combo of oil and water ends to expand into steam wherever friction happens, with the result that your rod bearing are literally blown apart. Roll forward a dozen years. For my '99 E320, Mercedes copied the earlier Porsche design. This became obvious when I went to check the oil, and discovered a blob of chocolate mousse on the inside of the filler cap. So the car is once again idle in the driveway, until I can figure out how to change the seals. Then I'll change the oil and hope for the best. German engineering, bah humbug. Oh, as for kerbs. When the E320 was one month old, we had a nasty snow and ice storm. I naturally picked my proud 4 matic for the ride to work. On a slight downgrade, I hit a patch of slick ice. Antilocks didn't help. Pumping the brakes didn't help. Steering was dead. Fortunately (you would think), I was edging along at about five or ten MPH. No matter. I was stopped when the car slid sideways into the kerb. Turns out 4matics don't like being stopped this way. The axles were pounded right into the differentials., and the engine oil pan split. With not a scratch on the car, the cost to repair was north of $20K. But wait, that's not all. The insurance company allowed the entire repair to be done at a Mercedes dealer. I was truly in good hands. But at my next renewal, the insurance company raised my rates to $14,000 per year! Investigating, it turned out that they had peppered our DMV driving records with half a dozen incidents, at least three of which were errors or total fabrications. That gave them the excuse to put us in their high risk pool. Ever try to correct your driving records? Fortunately, my wife was responsible for insurance benefits at her job, and the corporate agent was able to get us a "deal"...only $5000 per year. It took several years of driving on eggshells to get the rate out of the stratosphere. Mike Frank At 03:28 AM 12/24/2010, john wrote: >I've worked on a lot of cars over the last 40 or so years... > >I've heard about the problems of the Jettas with the oil pan being kind >of low, like about 5" off the ground... protected by a plastic sheet... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 21:36:14 +0000 From: dieseljohn@comcast.net Subject: Re: [db] example of a poor design... Wow. Guess I feel lucky. Napa had the oil pan for around $140, the oil almost cost as much, using amsoil 5w40 euro oil about $40 my costs. Getting the fea done again on the 300d while I'm waiting for the pan to arrive at napa. That e320 4matic has a worse curse that this jetta tdi it seems. I found a conversion setup for jeeps using the om617 for less than $500! Thinking a nice hardtop wrangler or even an xj. Will sell the tdi to fund the project. Only thing I don't like is it requires the ax-15 manual trans, would prefer to use an AW4 auto. John Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T - -----Original Message----- From: Michael Frank Sender: owner-diesel-benz@digest.net Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 07:10:19 To: Subject: Re: [db] example of a poor design... Now let's talk about bad design, as opposed to driver error. In my '88 944, there is an oil cooler. It's a clever design which cools the oil with water by circulating it through a little heat exchanger that sits in a coolant-filled box. Good idea...when the car is cold, the coolant will heat the oil to proper temperature and keep it there when the car gets hot. One small problem...the heat exchanger is held in place with friction, and two viton o-rings are all that separate oil and water. When the rubber begins to fail you get a chocolate milkshake. The combo of oil and water ends to expand into steam wherever friction happens, with the result that your rod bearing are literally blown apart. Roll forward a dozen years. For my '99 E320, Mercedes copied the earlier Porsche design. This became obvious when I went to check the oil, and discovered a blob of chocolate mousse on the inside of the filler cap. So the car is once again idle in the driveway, until I can figure out how to change the seals. Then I'll change the oil and hope for the best. German engineering, bah humbug. Oh, as for kerbs. When the E320 was one month old, we had a nasty snow and ice storm. I naturally picked my proud 4 matic for the ride to work. On a slight downgrade, I hit a patch of slick ice. Antilocks didn't help. Pumping the brakes didn't help. Steering was dead. Fortunately (you would think), I was edging along at about five or ten MPH. No matter. I was stopped when the car slid sideways into the kerb. Turns out 4matics don't like being stopped this way. The axles were pounded right into the differentials., and the engine oil pan split. With not a scratch on the car, the cost to repair was north of $20K. But wait, that's not all. The insurance company allowed the entire repair to be done at a Mercedes dealer. I was truly in good hands. But at my next renewal, the insurance company raised my rates to $14,000 per year! Investigating, it turned out that they had peppered our DMV driving records with half a dozen incidents, at least three of which were errors or total fabrications. That gave them the excuse to put us in their high risk pool. Ever try to correct your driving records? Fortunately, my wife was responsible for insurance benefits at her job, and the corporate agent was able to get us a "deal"...only $5000 per year. It took several years of driving on eggshells to get the rate out of the stratosphere. Mike Frank At 03:28 AM 12/24/2010, john wrote: >I've worked on a lot of cars over the last 40 or so years... > >I've heard about the problems of the Jettas with the oil pan being kind >of low, like about 5" off the ground... protected by a plastic sheet... ------------------------------ End of diesel-benz-digest V1 #3362 **********************************