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My 1992 500SL now has 272,000 miles on the analog odometer, About 3 years ago I changed the timing chain, tensioner and all the rails. Yes I had a noise at start up. All the rails were broken except the very bottom rails. The car has been running fine except for some unrelated to engine, but that's been recently fixed.
On another note I just help a friend of mine who has a 1999 500SL with 190,864 miles swap a 2003 M113 5.0 engine due to a piston ring failure, a very rare scenario I believe. I've also attached a pic of the damage.
Hi carltwo, what symptoms did the engine show when the piston ring failed?
Thanks
Peter.
All of a sudden the car began to idle rough when my friend was on his way home from work. I used a scanner placed it to the connection underneath the driver's kick panel and it read number 2 cylinder misfire. The next day I changed the coil and wire on cylinder 2 and replaced all 16 spark plugs, started the car and ran the motor for 5 minutes as it seem to run okay. Then I turn the car's ignition off and replaced all the engine covers and started the car up again to take it for a ride, then it made a loud metallic noise in which it appeared to come somewhere around number 2 cylinder. Poured 8 oz of seafoam in the crankcase and the noise suddenly disappeared. I realize all this sounds strange, but it's exactly what happen. For a few days I drove the car, however the car still ran rough but the metallic noise completely disappeared. The next day another friend came over and we stuck a camera down the spark plug hole of cylinder 2 and we could see the scored wall on cylinder 2. We all realized the M113 was toast. I would also note the car had lots of blow-by coming out of the oil cap and after taking off the valve cover you could clearly notice all the sludge and vanish appearance everywhere. Oil changed every 4,000 miles with full synthetic oil. I and many others have never heard of an M113 engine with the bottom half having problems like this 190,864 mile engine had.
To note further in which I was not aware of, that there are around 4 versions of the M113 engine as the engine in an SL is a M113 5.0 engine. I searched ebay and found an engine from a damaged 2003 SL that had 61,000 documented miles that was located locally in Ct., the same state I reside in. A rare find for a total price of $531.00 and searching for others were around a 100 to 200 dollars more. I could not believe that these M113 engine are very INEXPENSIVE. With a few part swaps from the 99 the engine is now in the car running perfectly sweet....
Now has 312K miles and is used as a daily drive to and from work ~100 miles per day and as a weekend car.
no mech issues but just wish i can get the roof to come off properly and fix the rear perspex screen. If anyone knows someone good and can fix the rear screen and top in the Bay area, let me know.
Normally wear and tear on the car seat and minor plastic trim has come off. (nothing major)
Rear boot brake light nor work (has not been for 10 years). Was leaking when it rained (known issue).
Headliner has come off and need a new one to get fixed.
Got a great mechanic to service and work on the car every 12-16 months.
And that is about it. Not bad for a 312K Merc.....
Will be getting the 500K certificate soon....
my 1990 SL300 has 77600 KM ( 48220 miles ). CND car obviously and with our winters only get a few goods months of driving - between cleaning the gravel off the roads from winter and first snow in the fall..
My 96 SL500 has about 58, 800 of which I've done 100 miles!
Such nice weather here now and I can't really drive it due to lockdown.
When everything is back to normal I need to have some maintainence done on it, hopefully can drive it a bit before the cold weather returns.
I just did the annual oil change and misc maintenance...... I even have spare wiring harnesses (engine and MAF, waiting for a simple ETA solution---any guidance on that issue??) ready to go when needed... .a bad photo of the odometer above
MB Classic has a "high" mileage (427 miles) SL600 listed... asking $135K which I think is very high but what do I know?
Glad to see those 300K mile examples!!! IMHO, the R107 and R129 were better built than the R230 and R231.....and certainly easier to maintain. Paint quality is way better on the R107.
My 1996 SL500 has currently got 64.920km / 40.340mi on it Have owned it for roughly 4 months only
Been a CLK w208 guy since i got my lisence 6 years ago but the SL r129 have always been on my dreamlist.
kindof downgraded as i owned a 2001 CLK 55 which i sold to be able to afford this low-mileage one, but i love it!
08-24-2019, 09:19 PM
Have owned it for roughly 4 months only
