Having already replaced the wash reservoir heated line, I went about replacing the tank, all the grommets, the squirters and heated squirter line, and the drip tray under the windshield.

I'll follow up later with some pics and what I did, but for now, after putting it all back together, I can't get either my wipers to move or my squirters to squirt.

At least nothing is leaking, intentionally or not...

Any idea what I didn't plug in or what I broke while I was in there? I'm currently running a scan...

Edit: scan shows only the usual codes for keyless go, unplugged OPR solenoid, rain/light sensor defective. Nothing new and nothing which explains why the wipers and squirters won't do anything...

 

I forgot this car has a hood sensor. The hood was still up so nothing was working. Closed the hood and the squirters squirt, but the wipers just move an inch or so each way. I think they are not in the right initial position.

Does anyone have the link to setting the wiper starting position handy?

 

I think the wiper gear drive has the position hard coded... I don't believe wipers travel is soft learned.

I have not yet had the opportunity to visit this wipers LIN module. I am sure the local controller has its own ways to act up.

 

Quick update is I was able to get it to work, but just readjusting the wipers visually a few times until everything worked. I'll follow up with pics and a writeup shortly.

On the W211 and other cars, there is a very specific rest position the wipers need to be in and if they're not at that spot, it will mess things up. I'm not sure if that's the case with the W212 or not, but the wiper spindles are splined and you can put them on in many positions. Some of them just don't work... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

All right, getting down to business, I had parts for replacing my drip tray because the rubber sealing material was mostly missing and the squirters for no particularly good reason other than the hose felt a bit stiff. My wash bottle had been leaking since I got the car, so I decided to finally re-do the whole system. Previously, I replaced the heater line from my firewall because it was spraying out coolant like arterial bleeding. After this job, only the level sensor and squirter pump have not been replaced.

I started at the windshield and removed the covers to the wiper nuts:




These just pry off. The small round ones are rubber and you can't really break them or deform them. The large piece is plastic and just snaps off. Getting under it isn't a big deal.

Then I removed the wiper nuts:






Getting the wiper arms off the spindles can be tricky. They are splined on. 2 of them came off with a plastic deadblow hammer but I didn't want to increase the brutality on the 3rd one and it wasn't budging, so I broke out a gear puller:




After the wipers were out of the way, I removed the plastic rivets holding the drip tray on:




There are about 4 of these, but one of mine was missing. No big deal. With the rivets out, you can just lift the drip tray up at one corner, get it out from under the windshield trim, and unsnap it from the groove below the windshield.




At this point, I observed how the squirter line was routed. There are metal clips that hold it all along the drip tray. These weren't included with the new drip tray. Removing the metal clips looks like this:




Just bend them out of the way from the side with the corners and pop them up.

Then I unhooked all of the old squirters from the drip tray. There is a plastic tab on each side. If you push the squirter from what is normally the top towards what is normally the back with one hand, and with the other hand press each of those tabs in, it will pop right out:




After I had the drip tray off, I noted how the squirter lines are routed back towards the wash bottle. The routing is pretty well managed. There is a narrow channel under an A/C line that I was able to get the old lines out from under but wasn't able to jam the new lines back in. More on that later.




Next I jacked up the front driver's side and removed the wheel and fender liner. There are two 10mm plastic nuts on top and behind the wheel. There are also 3 plastic rivets inside the fender well but I only had 2. Oh well.

Underneath, there are 2 8mm bolts that hold the front of the fender liner to the bottom of the bumper or something. They're pretty obvious. There's also one more plastic rivet.

Once that is out of the way, you can see the washer bottle in all her glory.





#1: the connection to the heated lines (behind the larger bundle of wires). It's a 2-pin Hirschmann connector like the the cam adjusters. Kind of a ***** to get out, but it works the same, but with no lock.
#2: the squirter pump. You can just lever this out and pull it up at the same time. It just presses into a rubber grommet. The squirter line is attached to it with a clip like on the ball end connection of a hood shock. It presses to the side really easily and then you can pull the line off the pump. Obviously, once the pump and/or line are off, liquid will pour out.
#3: on the back of the wash bottle is the level sensor. I just pulled the whole sensor out. It is also just press fit into a grommet. Pull and rotate.

Continued:

 

The wash bottle has 3 10mm bolts holding it in.

There is one accessible from the fender well. Unfortunately I don't think I got a picture of this one, but it's pretty obvious.

From the top, there are 2 more. One easy, one hard. Fortunately for me, I don't think the hard one is necessary and mine was missing. The easy one is here:



This nut holds a plastic bracket that is snapped to the side of the wash bottle. Once you free the bolt, you just somehow pop it off the side of the bottle. Remove that part, then go back below.

You now need to pop out the tank heater contraption. Just pry at the white plastic lid until it pops off. Then you need to do some 3D tetris to get the pipes out of the plastic tank. I don't know how I did it, I just know it took me a long time. It was a lot easier to get them back into the new tank. Here is what they look like when removed:



And various stages of removal:





And the tank out:



Now the new tank gets the 2 metal sheet metal pieces transferred to it. New grommets go on the sensor and the pump. And there is a rubber bushing that goes where the tank touches the body. The old cap gets transferred over.






Then you just gotta get the new tank snaked back into the car, get the heater lines into the tank, get the plastic bracket attacked, put the sensor back in, attach the new squirter line to the pump, install the pump, route the pump lines, and feed the squirter lines up to the top of the engine bay.

I ended up removing a weird plastic nut that holds the A/C line down just for a little more wiggle room. I used some angled needle nose pliers:




Once that was out of the way, I was able to route the lines up to the windshield, clip everything in to the new drip tray, snap the new drip tray in, reinstall the plastic rivets, put the wiper arms back and tighten them down.

As mentioned earlier, the first 3 attempts at installing the wiper arms didn't go well, but eventually I found a position that worked. Then I snugged them down tighter and put the plastic caps back on.

Done.

Here's a bonus pick of the level sensor:

 

Here's a good video showing the process I described:


He shows the 3 bolts and the weird plastic snap-on bracket. He also shows the other pump you will need to pull out if you have headlight washers (I don't for some reason).

I will need to rotate one of my squirter nozzles so I'm going to pick up this handy tool that someone linked in another thread:
The sprayers spray with more force than the old ones. They must have been slightly clogged. I noticed there are also tiny wire sets that are intended for clearing those nozzles, if anyone has that problem and doesn't want to pull their wiper arms...

 

I tried to find the very detailed guide for setting the parking position of the wipers that I saw before for the W211, but I was unsuccessful. I found this diagram for the W220 though, showing the marks on the windshield that tell you where they should park:




There should be something similar for the W212. It's a bit sensitive, but I was able to get it right by trial and error. I think my wipers wipe better now than before I readjusted them inadvertently. There's only about 50% as much flutter.

 

Its here ................ a long read
https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...incidence.html


Wiper removal tool, useful
https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...s-not-bad.html

 

Thanks for the links. One of the docs you posted does show where the park position markers should be. I couldn't find them, but they are smaller than on the W211 (dots instead of lines). I'll check again later when it's not raining.

I like that mini-puller tool. It's cute.

 

Use a torch light and angled it some, the line is under the glass and very very NOT OBVIOUS if not using torchlight assist.

 

I finally got around to diagnosing the source of the leak in the washer fluid reservoir. Water was leaking out from the seam between the two halves of the reservoir:




I didn't do a detailed inspection before I tossed the part to know for sure, but while originally I thought the part was blow molded in one piece, it seems like it was actually molded in several separate pieces which were welded together. Very odd.

 

I think injection molded with complex shape or a fully enclosed container shape will use two molds and then they glue or radio weld the 2 halves.