New member

[sonic]

Welcome. I had a CLK270CDI just before I sold it the thermostat stuck open. Quite a drop in fuel economy.

 

[Jimbo1959]

Welcome on board, from yet another OM642 owner.

 

[tttonyyy]

By way of an update, 7 months into running on nothing but biodiesel and the car has been beset by rough starting. It appears that the high pressure injection pump is letting fuel out and air in. I rebuilt the pump 7 months ago with a Flag seal kit, but I do remember the heads were pitted and corroded. I sanded them but some putting was quite deep. I've ordered another pump from a breaker (less than the cost of two tanks of fuel, so I'm still winning financially!) and will swap them out and take the rebuilt one apart to see exactly what happened inside it. I suspect the seals may have turned to cheese...

In other news it got run into and written off last month (just plastic bumper damage, cat N) but I bought it back from the insurers to repair myself. Crazy they automatically write off cars based on age alone (still on only 67k miles). So, a bit more work to do...

 

[mercmancdi]

Hi welcome

 

[tttonyyy]

Over three years and 6500l of biodiesel later and she's still going.

Started struggling to start over the last few months, the fuel lines have been slowly turning to paste and must have let air in while parked, which needed cranking through to start. Replaced today, but I thought I'd share how their inevitable demise looks, to anyone thinking of running a more expensive Merc on biodiesel. . (Mine has now far exceeded the vehicle's value in fuel savings so is essentially economically disposable).

Injection rail and unions seem to have accumulated a brown goo inside (most likely leftover traces of glycerol/soap), but this does not seem to be affecting running so a quick clean up and we will keep going!