X166 GL450/ GL550 Oil in Harness fix
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Joined: Jul 2021
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GL450
X166 GL450/ GL550 Oil in Harness fix
Hey all. I've been lurking in the oil in engine harness thread for months because I have a 2013 GL450 that I love and I noticed that the cam sensors were just starting to leak oil into the harnesses. I also noticed, after much searching, that nobody made these harnesses for the M278/ GL450/ 550. So you had to replace all the sensors with the newer versions, even if the existing sensors and magnets are working fine. So I reached out to some friends of mine in the performance auto parts industry and asked them if they could craft me some extension harnesses to use as a fuse like they do with other Mercedes models that suffer from the same issue. And so they did. I've tested them on my car and they work great.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/17091548172...Bk9SR9yt2_uFYQ
Basically think of them as a cheap fuse. If your sensors or cam actuators start pushing oil out of their plugs, these fusible links will atop that oil from jumping to the main engine harness. So instead of a potential $10,000+ repair and a totaled car, you simply replace these if the oil seepage gets bad enough. They're $100 for a set of 8 (4 actuators, 4 sensors) and should work on any M278. So not just the X166 GL but also the S class, SL, CLS, etc. You'll need to verify that though. They take about 10 minutes to install.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not making anything off of these and have no vested interest in you buying them. I just saw it as a problem that needed solving and have a friend in the industry who I thought could solve that problem and offer a product as part of his business. The only thing I got out of this was a set of the harnesses. Anyhow, hopefully this gives some people a bit of piece of mind.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/17091548172...Bk9SR9yt2_uFYQ
Basically think of them as a cheap fuse. If your sensors or cam actuators start pushing oil out of their plugs, these fusible links will atop that oil from jumping to the main engine harness. So instead of a potential $10,000+ repair and a totaled car, you simply replace these if the oil seepage gets bad enough. They're $100 for a set of 8 (4 actuators, 4 sensors) and should work on any M278. So not just the X166 GL but also the S class, SL, CLS, etc. You'll need to verify that though. They take about 10 minutes to install.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not making anything off of these and have no vested interest in you buying them. I just saw it as a problem that needed solving and have a friend in the industry who I thought could solve that problem and offer a product as part of his business. The only thing I got out of this was a set of the harnesses. Anyhow, hopefully this gives some people a bit of piece of mind.
