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As many of you know who own this car. Rocks hitting the heat exchanger or the trans coolers on the either side of the car is a very bad day! Yesterday, it was my day to experience this problem.
After driving I noticed the transmission temperature rapidly climbing to 220 degrees and instantly knew there was a problem. Pulled over let the car cool down and drove back. Luckily wasn’t far away. When I got home. I put down some cardboard to find where the leak was coming from.
To my surprise it was in the front of the vehicle not the sides. I looked around and found the spot where a rock hit the pipe on the radiator.
I made a call to a private shop and Mercedes. Quote from the private shop was $1300 for new heat exchanger and install. Mercedes told me they wanted “a few thousand to do the job”. I watched some videos and found one where a guy used JB weld to fix the radiator. Figured it was worth a shot.
Hit the small hole with some JB weld and let it cure overnight. This afternoon fired the car up got it to temperature and filled it with additional coolant. To my surprise it actually worked. No leaks and temperatures are steady at 176 degrees with hard driving.
I’ll do the radiator next summer since the car is going to sit all winter. Hope this helps.
As many of you know who own this car. Rocks hitting the heat exchanger or the trans coolers on the either side of the car is a very bad day! Yesterday, it was my day to experience this problem.
After driving I noticed the transmission temperature rapidly climbing to 220 degrees and instantly knew there was a problem. Pulled over let the car cool down and drove back. Luckily wasn’t far away. When I got home. I put down some cardboard to find where the leak was coming from.
To my surprise it was in the front of the vehicle not the sides. I looked around and found the spot where a rock hit the pipe on the radiator.
I made a call to a private shop and Mercedes. Quote from the private shop was $1300 for new heat exchanger and install. Mercedes told me they wanted “a few thousand to do the job”. I watched some videos and found one where a guy used JB weld to fix the radiator. Figured it was worth a shot.
Hit the small hole with some JB weld and let it cure overnight. This afternoon fired the car up got it to temperature and filled it with additional coolant. To my surprise it actually worked. No leaks and temperatures are steady at 176 degrees with hard driving.
I’ll do the radiator next summer since the car is going to sit all winter. Hope this helps.
That's great work right there mate, good stuff. Now it just needs a dab of silver paint and you'll never know it happened.
So no more leaks or high transmission temps after the JB Weld?
That's great work right there mate, good stuff. Now it just needs a dab of silver paint and you'll never know it happened.
So no more leaks or high transmission temps after the JB Weld?
I was so surprised this actually worked. Drove about 150 miles since posting this. Temps are at 176-178. Since it has practically all new fluid it’s driving cooler than before. Not a single drip from the heat exchanger.
To be honest, I probably won’t even replace the heat exchanger. JB weld is rated to 5020 psi that is far higher than the car would ever need. It’s bound to get hit by another rock anyway. I’m looking into putting some stainless mesh screen in front of the radiators. Haven’t found a great option yet.
I was so surprised this actually worked. Drove about 150 miles since posting this. Temps are at 176-178. Since it has practically all new fluid it’s driving cooler than before. Not a single drip from the heat exchanger.
To be honest, I probably won’t even replace the heat exchanger. JB weld is rated to 5020 psi that is far higher than the car would ever need. It’s bound to get hit by another rock anyway. I’m looking into putting some stainless mesh screen in front of the radiators. Haven’t found a great option yet.
I'm having a company make me some stainless mesh screen for the lower three sections. I have the choice of style, color and finish. I've used their mesh screens on some of my other cars.
I was so surprised this actually worked. Drove about 150 miles since posting this. Temps are at 176-178. Since it has practically all new fluid it’s driving cooler than before. Not a single drip from the heat exchanger.
To be honest, I probably won’t even replace the heat exchanger. JB weld is rated to 5020 psi that is far higher than the car would ever need. It’s bound to get hit by another rock anyway. I’m looking into putting some stainless mesh screen in front of the radiators. Haven’t found a great option yet.
I'd like to do this too. Did you have to remove the bumper to install?
Got a pic you can share?
Originally Posted by C3504maticView Post
Installed the cooler grilles today . You will need to remove the coolers to complete the job as the ducts are in the way . The grilles are very easy to install once the coolers are removed and they have barbs that push into the cooler fins and they also have tangs on the ends to slide under the cooler tanks ...... pretty simple but removing coolers is a pain and whole job with the bumper already removed took just about an hour. My car only has 15,000 miles roughly and you can see the amount of impacts the coolers have already taken ....this should cut down the damage significantly
Got mine booked in next week, then when I was cleaning it today, I realised they were fitted! Had leaves behind the grills! Also found some massive stones in there too, so they've done their job. Are they standard on a facelift?
Hit the small hole with some JB weld and let it cure overnight. This afternoon fired the car up got it to temperature and filled it with additional coolant. To my surprise it actually worked. No leaks and temperatures are steady at 176 degrees with hard driving.
10-08-2020 | 01:50 PM
