Not new to the forum, but new to the 203 AMG section. I've been a Mercedes guy since my first car- 89 190E. I've been without a Mercedes for about 3 years now. My last one was a C36 that I brought back from the brink of destruction.




Well, I'm back at it- buying neglected money pit AMG's that desperately need attention. I just can't help myself, haha. I recently picked up a 2002 C32, while cosmetically in great shape, it has been ignored mechanically for a while.







When I first got it, it had no power, SC not engaging at all. It had a code for a knock sensor, so my friend and I pulled the SC to replace it and guess what we found? An abandoned mouse house with a nicely chewed through knock sensor harness. (This is where we came up with the name "Cdirty2" haha.



We repaired the harness and threw in a new sensor for good measure and VOILA! I had a super charger and power for days. Still some other issues to deal with, but it was better.

Following that, I also changed plugs, and replaced a half dead coil pack, replaced the tires, fuel filter/fuel pressure regulator.

The paint on the wheels had gone to crap from brake dust and improper use of cleaning chemicals, so when I changed the tires, I did a quick rattle can respray.








I'm still fighting a rough idle issue. Some times it's subtle, sometimes it feels like the car is misfiring badly and I have to pick up the revs a little at a stop light. It FEELS like a misfire, but it's not. This feeling is only at idle, not while driving. No related codes (only codes are for the cats, but that's because they're not there) plugs are new (old ones looked a little lean), wires swapped out with known good ones, coils are all good. The fuel filter DID make an improvement. Idle smoothed out by about 70% and the butt dyno did notice an improvement in power and delivery. It's still not entirely right though. It no longer feels like it's misfiring at idle, but it's still an issue for sure. Vacuum lines have been checked and replaced where needed, throttle body cleaned, supercharger and plenum gaskets replaced. Just looking for ideas if anyone else has dealt with this. There are a lot of threads out there on the subject, but most lack a conclusion.

Anyway, I thought I'd post here to kind of keep a log of what I've done to the car and what I will be doing. I would also appreciate any insight to my idle issue. Thank guys, good to be back in a Benz.

 

I had a problem at idle whlle cold, then once heated up, it was OK. Turned out to be CATS.

 

I thought the same thing, I went ahead and deleted the primary cats because I wanted to anyway. Made no difference to the idle unfortunately. Sounds better though, haha

 

u check the secondaries as well?

 

Not yet, but the primary's looked prettt damn near perfect when they came out, so the chances of the secondary cats being bad are pretty slim

 

this is true

 

Good work man. Keep it up. Loved that C36 AMG you restored. Why is it that some people say Mercedexz vehicles dont like wire repairs? Is it true or false?
I repaired my ambient or outside room temperature sensor and after a few days back to negative reading on the cluster. Maybe I ought to replace it with a new one. Sorry to jack thread but my query is relating to your wire repair on the knock sensor. It seems to me if you replace it with the wire of same amount of copper strands it should all be cherry not so?

 

Like you said, it's really all about making sure you use the correct wire for the job. In my case, the harness that runs to the knock sensors was shielded wire, so we just had to make sure to get the appropriate shielded replacement wire for it.

The C36 was great. I kind of regret getting rid of it, but the C32 makes up for it, lol

 

Hmmm Interesting. Well thats good to hear. On that wire note, I managed to get a decent length from a salvaged car with the connector. All I did was splice the wires, place heat shield tubing over then solder the two ends and then place the heat shield tube over and heat that to make a water proof connection but now it no longer reads fine. Will see if I replace the sensor if it helps as this sensor did come from the slavage yard as well.

 

Well.... good news and bad news.... good news is that I may have tracked down my rough/lumpy idle issue. Bad news is that it might be the dreaded 2002 camshaft issue.

When we first fixed ths knock sensor, I would get a cyl 6 misfire anytime I got on it hard. The issue mysteriously went away on its own. Tonight I had a good chance to inspect things under the hood while it was idling in gear. I heard a random popping sound coming from the intake/supercharger that's coincided with the hiccups of the engine. Pulled the air boxes off and took a look at the throttle body and sure enough, air was being pushed OUT the throttle body....

Anyone have some spare updated cams laying around?

 

how that car has no rust on it in FL amazes me..congrats on the pick up!

 

I've got a set of original camshafts from an 02 C32 Engine with 98k miles on them. I had them replaced with Kleeman cams. Let me know if you're interested.

 

I'm a little hesitant to replace them with another set of 02 cams since that's the year that has this issue. However, price may be a deciding factor.... as long as you weren't having any issues before removal, lol.

How do you like the new cams? Worth the money?

 

Kleeman cams were nice. Must have their K3 package to see the difference.

The stock cams were working fine. It all depends what you want to do with the car and how much money you want to spend on it. New cams at the dealership is $1740.00 a piece. I think $600 for a used pair is fair.

Let me know.

 

Could you PM me with some pictures of them?

 

I will, i just some time to find them in my garage.

 

Very nice. I am actually considering getting one as a project car. The one I am looking at is in pretty rough shape!


I will follow your thread.

 

Well, I know that I have more important things to fix on the car, but I got a new set of wheels for it, lol. I wasn't planning on it, but a set of fairly rare Carlssons in a very attractive width and offset popped up for sale for a fairly ridiculously low price, so I couldn't resist. Oh, and they came with good tires in correct sizes for my car.

Carlsson 2/5's 18x8.5 et35 and 18x10 et30!






They're not perfect, but I only paid $350 for the set. Considering that they're worth about $1200, I really can't complain.

 

In other news, I found a set of 2003 C32 camshafts, however the box arrived severely damaged with a large hole in the corner... one camshaft was damaged and the other was MISSING!!!!






So basically, I still need some camshafts.

 

Sweet project car, and props to you for saving a modern classic. I have done tons of refresh things on my 135K mile C32, except change the cams as mine is a 2003.
Keep us posted on your progress!

 

Those wheeels!!! Hnnng! I'm currently selling my newly purchased c32 because I have to help my sister go to uni but I'm not getting any serious people. If my other car sells before the c32, I will keep the beast and give it all the love and care. I can't believe you got those wheels at that price! Best wishes with your 32

 

Well, a little set back on the car. Had a friend hook it up to Star, and it basically failed every test and had trouble communicating. The day before, my key fob had stopped working. After I got home from having it hooked up, I went back out about an hour later and the car wouldn't start- no fuel.

Im getting power to the fuse and the relay is functioning properly, but no power to the pumps.

Did a little research and found a handy little list of everything that the individual SAM modules control in the car. Turns out that nearly all of the things that either don't work, or are intermittent on the car, all run through the rear SAM.

So this is good news and bad. It sucks that I need a new SAM, but this could actually fix 90% of my issues with this car.