Gents,

I found an exhaust leak just behind the oil filler cap on my R320 CDI. I can hear and feel the exhaust come out but not sure where to go from here. I'm a DIYer and would like to try to fix this myself. Check out the attached pic. The leak is right below the black plastic braided hose. If you look close down in the little cavern there it seems slightly damp.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

 

Here are the pics

 

How do you know it's exhaust leak?

 

Because it smells very much like raw diesel exhaust.

 

I think what you might be smelling is a fuel leak around your injectors.

 

It's an actual puff of air/exhaust I can feel with my finger. It makes a ffffftt ffffft noise. The air is not wet but you could be right as it looks damp when I look deep into the hole area.

Not sure what my next step is.

 

Do you have any error codes or a CEL popping up?

I'm wondering if maybe you have a seal failure on that injector, and you're getting air escaping from the cylinder. It should give you a CEL, but I'm not sure what the compression loss threshold is before that happens.