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Just as the title says... my wife told me her car was making a weird noise so I took it for a drive. I heard a clunk and the alternator light went on right away as well as loosing power steering. Luckily, I was almost home so I was able to pull it into the garage. Power steering fluid all over the place. Opened the hood and the belt fell off (as expected) and the power steering pump was dangling by the grounding wire.
Any idea what size the bolts are that I will need to install a new one? They appear to all be missing, so either this was once replaced and not installed correctly or they managed to work their way out? who knows- I have never seen this happen before.
In addition, the car has had an occasional issue where when the accelerator is pushed to the floor while driving, the car will then loose pretty much all power until it is shut off and restarted (The car does not accelerate when the pedal is depressed- everything else is normal, electrical, etc.). I am not sure if this is somehow related or if anyone has any ideas what could cause this. Thanks in advance!
That sounds really shady. Did you buy the car used, or was there work done recently on that part of the engine? I don't think anybody on this forum (W203) has ever reported such a pump falling off.
shady indeed. We bought the car used a little over a month ago. It has about 122k miles on it. It looked really clean and seemed to run well when we bought it. The only work I have done on it was replacing the blower for hvac, an oil change and I replaced the Evap solenoid (it was clicking pretty bad and the check engine light came on with a P0444 Evaporative Emission system purge control valve circuit open). I know a little oil spilled on the belts but I tried to wipe as much up as possible. I figured that was what was causing the squeaking and thought it would go away, but then the pump just fell off.
Turns out the bracket broke which appears to be connected to the crankcase. I'm guessing this is bad news. I have not taken anything apart yet but I am guessing I am in for a world of hurt here. Are there any alternatives to replacing everything down there?
Best to hit a dealer and look at their assembly diagram. Hopefully it's just the bracket and not stripped threads in the engine block.
Some of these diagrams are also available online (ie Google search). The trick with these cars (well, any car in general) is always to identify and only replace what's actually broken.
Wow you are a lucky person as I have never heard of this happening! Maybe go buy a lottery ticket.
If you have any pics that would help us see what parts you may need. I will say that a junk yard should have everything you would need for fairly cheap as their are so many m112 engines (C240, C320, E320, CLK 320 and so on) starting to hit retirement. Obviously verify compatibility before purchasing.
I started to look at it last night and it does indeed appear to be broken from the timing cover. I am thinking that perhaps the two bolts in the front were missing and too much stress was put on the back ones. The back bolts were still screwed into the back of the pump (along with a piece of the timing cover) and the front ones are no where to be found.
I am trying to find someone that will weld a new bracket on in the back or MacGuyver something without taking the cover off, but I might have to. I have seen that doing the timing chain is a bit of a job, and not recommended as a DIY, but what about just the cover? OR what if I just put in the front two bolts? the back ones looked like they were there more for support, I wonder if I could get by on only two...
You said this is your wife's car right? then dont cheap out and risk leaving her stranded. You can just replace the cover but if you are having it done you may as well have them do the chain and guides.
I guess my question is what would something like that cost? I saw in another forum for a different car that it would be about 16 hours labor + parts, which is not worth it. if that is the case, I would be spending at least 2k on a 4k car. I bought the car in hopes of saving some money. If it is something I can rig up to last a little while, I can take it and buy her another car or keep this one as a spare, just hoping there is a less expensive way to get it back on the road. I also thought about just doing a PS delete on it, but not sure how much would be involved in that as well to do it right.
well.. if you're not going to DIY the cover it would not be cost effective for you. You can do a delete by connecting the in and out line of the PS pump.
01-25-2017, 04:52 PM
