bbirdwell

Stuck in a gas station parking lot. :-( She shredded the serpentine belt on me. 5000 more miles and I was going to give her a new one. Hopefully no damage to engine with one mile of max coolant temp. Now waiting on arrival of tools to install spare belt I carry. And I just took my emergency tool bag out of the trunk yesterday! An E55 is a demanding car...sigh.

ikrazyfoo

Don't move to an E63 then...if you think that's bad. I washed my engine bay Saturday with water / dawn and a 45 degree pressure washer nozzle. Needless to say, a little water got into one of the throttle body connectors at the front of the engine behind the power steering reservoir and caused havoc. I made it about 10 miles down the road before the 'ESP Inoperable' light popped up and the car would not rev. Once I got the car home, an hour later with it randomly working, it took me another 3 hours to find the problem and correct it. I just wanted to wash the damn thing and it got mad at me...haha. Definitely feel your pain though, these cars are picky.

tw2

Yep I got an AA membership when I bought this car. Sorry to hear of your troubles, they like to get you when you least expect it. I also have spare belts (at home), spare CPS and some other stuff just in case. But my best "mod" was buying a second car so I can take my time to fix whatever goes wrong.

Hotsauce55

StarvingArtist

Did you find a cause? Bad idler or just old age one the belt. I can't remember if mine is original at 127k. If i replaced it, it was almost 50k ago. I'm going on a road trip tomorrow, Hmmmmm.

If you didn't boil off your coolant, your engine is fine.

hayseed

iTrader: (2)

that blows, air temps starting to creep up in DFW today also -- makes it worse to reach into hot engine bay on a hot day -- if your stuck up N Dallas I can lend you a hand or a tool or two

w204_racing

Yuille36

You never use a pressure washer on these engine, as high pressure water can be injected into any electrical connector. You just use a engine degreaser or cleaner, and use a bug sprayer or spray bottle and shop towels to wipe everything down.

bbirdwell

Took me 45 minutes to install the replacement serpentine belt. 10 minutes to find the 17mm socket I dropped in front of the engine (hint: thump with the heel of your palm the undertray attached to the bumper; eventually the socket will bounce into view), 15 minutes to install the belt only to find I routed it incorrectly, 5 minutes to pull out my computer and locate the belt routing diagram, then 15 minutes to install the belt correctly (hint: route the socket under the belt and not through the belt; don't ask me how I learned that). Most certainly a PITA to route the belt over the power steering and air conditioner pulleys.
*Very* tight fit and skinny arms help but I still ended up with second-degree burns on my forearm from the supercharger pulley (I regret not having in my car a set of "mechanics sleeves"). Would have been easier to route from underneath but I judged it inadvisable to pull the front belly pan due to low clearance (plus it was a pretty nasty area of the parking lot).
Photos above (one from MarcusF in 2009) show belt routing. I recommend you print the photos out, fold, and place in the wrapper of any spare belt you carry (or bookmark it in the owner's manual). Engine seems okay, minor loss of coolant but I still need to perform a detailed inspection. Belt had only 53,800 miles on it; literally shredded into strips, no sign of incipient failure when I last inspected it 3800 miles ago during a service so I must not have looked closely enough or it was an internal fault in the belt reinforcing material not obvious from external examination. All pulleys spun freely and true so it wasn't a pulley (they are still going to be replaced at the 60K maintenance due in 6200 miles).
As to the question of driving that last 60 seconds, I did not want to pull over as it was a high-speed expressway during rush hour and I'd rather replace an engine than be squashed by some fool who didn't see me on the side of the road.

drothgeb

x2 on the AAA. AAA Plus is like $90 and $50 to add a spouse with up to 100 mile tow. (up to 4 times per person per year). I travel for work and my company pays for the service for spouses left at home, but it is great peace of mind I'd buy it myself anyways.

bbirdwell

I have towing insurance so could have had the car towed to my home and submitted a claim with USAA. But I'm standing there looking at the belt thinking, "All I need is a 17mm socket and 10 minutes and I can be back on the road before a tow truck could even get here." I had completely forgotten just what a PITA it is to install a serpentine belt on these cars.
My Hubris (I can do this in 10 minutes!) was beaten down by Nemesis (Holy crap! That supercharger pulley is freakin' hot and burning the hell out of my arm!).

Hotsauce55

Yuille36

Correct me if I am wrong. But doesn't the E55 have a bypass? Where you can still drive the car but at reduced power since no supercharger belt.

Hotsauce55

Yuille36

I know that the E55 can still be driven without the power from the supercharger, as their has to be some type of bypass?

bbirdwell

Sure. When the serpentine shredded it dislodged the supercharger belt and I just left it off. No issues at all driving the car home but I also went very easy on the throttle until I could have an opportunity to check the engine out.

From what I could read at Helhans blog, one can expect the bypass valve to close as the throttle plate opens (throttle open 0%, bypass closed 0%; throttle open 30%, bypass valve closed 30%; throttle open 100%, bypass valve closed 100%). I would expect the engine to be very down on power and multiple trouble codes to pop up on a scan if the supercharger is not rotating. It would be tough to get air through the rotors but some would get through. So, I would recommend only using partial throttle which should be sufficient.

FWIW, on my first Miata I had the aftermarket Roots-style supercharger seize while I was attending training up at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I removed the belt and drove the car 700 miles back to Texas with a seized supercharger (no bypass valve on a Miata!). Power was probably in the 50-60 rwhp horsepower range (versus 90 rwhp stock) and the engine would not rev over 5000 rpm or so, but the car got me home. So...it can and has been done.

If I were a long way from home, and had my E55 supercharger sieze, I would pull/cut the supercharger belt and then pull the connector to the bypass valve so it would stay fully open all the time. Then I'd just have a normally-aspirated M113 with power similar to my W210 version.

MACEDON

As far as cleaning of the engine goes talk to Seanol, his is sparkling clean