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Well, not brand new, got it about 3 weeks ago. A 1998 CLK320 with 113K on it. Absolutely amazing condition. Working on getting all the maintenance up to date as it did not have any service history. So far I have changed the oil and coolant, air and cabin filter. Started on the transmission fluid today, but ran into a gotcha. As its a 1998 I can drain the torque converter (I better be able to). After reading some posts, I thought I would be able to rotate the crankshaft with a 22 mm Socket. I should have looked first, but I've got the 27 mm hex crank bolt. Of course I don't have one of these and none to be found locally. Thanks to Amazon Prime, I'll have one on Sunday. Anyway, I got the transmission drained, replaced the filter and the connector. On the slate for tomorrow is:
Fuel Filter
Brake Flush
Spark Plugs
Serpentine Belt and Idler Pully
Differential Fluid
Besides that stuff, there are a couple little things that need to be fixed, but nothing major. Surprisingly the front suspension and motor mounts seem OK, but will be inspecting them closer tomorrow.
Love the lines of these cars, basically a timeless design. No one that see it believes it is a '98.
For other posts, I thought you bought a cabriolet.
Glad your changing the idler pulley. Very easy to do on the CLK 320. Changed mine, as preventive maintenance, at 83,000 miles, the bearing was noisy and the plastic body had 3 stress cracks.
If you don't have one of those brake bleeding tools/gadgets, I found that the gravity method worked fine. Use a quality fluid, preferably of a different color dye to tell you when the old fluid has been flushed.
WARNING: Don't know what the MB engineers were thinking, but the W208 does not have any pad wear sensors on the rear axle pads. The pads on both the left and right front axle do have sensors. Note: An exception is that there is one high performance W208 version (AMG?) that does use pad wear sensors on both the front and rear.
Removing the spark plug boots is typically a PITA. There is a special tool (e.g. 17 mm wrench with an offset) that makes makes the job fast and easy.
Lastly, I believe the 1998 models were the only W208s that had a drain plug on the torque converter. The lifetime fill turned out to be BS with MB since recommending that the fluid/filter be changed at 40K miles and every 40K miles thereafter.
Serpentine belt was worn and I'm glad I did the pulley as well. It was a little noisy, but had about 5 little cracks, probably not much longer for this world.
I have a motion power bleeder so the brake bleed is a piece of cake.
Have the tool for the plug boots. I also find it is MUCH easier to take out a motor mount bolt and jack up the engine a bit when doing plugs, especially the rear plugs. I'm pretty sure the plugs I pulled were the originals.
I think the fuel filter was original as well. I'd have thought that as beautiful as the car is cosmetically, there would have been some maintenance one on the thing as well. Definitely not much, the coolant had been changed, but there was green stuff in there. Took car of that right away.
Forgot to pick up some gear oil so the differential will wait for tomorrow. I'll do that at the same time I'm draining the torque converter.
I have had a W202 for a number of years and love that car as well. Helped me with tool accumulation Love how easy these cars are to work on.
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Love how easy these cars are to work on.
