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Some members are aware that my wife and I flew to Brissy and purchased a car from a bloke in Surfers Paradise (Yes, I noww know that I could have flown direct to Surfers') and drove it home to Perth.
tillyfromparadise; cuppatea; dagwill; gilfish; shiner; Westwinds;
Thanks to you all for offering fuel on our trip back to Perth. Special thanks to Tilly and Shiner for the fuel and the encouragement they provided.
Here is the story of our trip home:
We drove from Surfers Paradise to Tilly's place, where he provided us with 240L of biodiesel in 12, 20 litre containers (which filled the boot) and filled the 60L fuel tank.
After spending Wednesday night in their good company, we headed for WA.
We drove 960 Km to Cobar NSW where we over-nighted in a Motel.
On Friday we drove another 960 Km to Whyalla SA where Shiner & Gillfish supplied us with 5 micron filtered WVO. We stayed overnight at Whyalla.
On Saturday, we continued westwards, but around 10km after passing Yalata, we experienced power loss and were stuck on the side of the road, miles from nowhere (Yalata). Passing motorists offered assistance, but none could fix the issue, but we confirmed that there was air in the fuel coming from the tank, despite a near full tank. I had no knowledge of the fuel system on this model (most of my experience has been on W123 and W124 300Ds). My wife had no coverage on her Optus phone, but I managed to get coverage on my Telstra mobile. I phoned for help and soon had a Towie with a tilt tray coming to take us back to Ceduna SA.
6 hours later (8pm) we were delivered to a motel in Ceduna.
The Towie offered to come over on Sunday morning to see if we could get the car running again.
I searched the forum and internet for W202 C250D fuel diagrams and found several hits, including the Russian VIN/Parts book site. As the internet connection was time and bandwidth limited, I saved these to my Notebook PC for reference in the morning.
We confirmed the air issue and purchased some clear beverage tubing which we ran from the fuel filler cap, over the roof of the car to the passenger side of the bonnet, and into the engine bay, without crimping the tube as it passed under the bonnet.
It was attached using a fuel prefilter for our 300D's (which I had brought along, with a couple of butterfly hose clamps, in case they were needed). The prefilter has 8mm OD which worked well with the beverage tube (8mm ID), but the vehicle fuel hose for the fuel supply line was a 10mm hose. A hose clamp enabled that hose to seal to the 8mm prefilter. A fishing sinker, wired to the tank end of the hose helped keep the hose in the fuel. A disposable "emergency fuel cap" was drilled to allow the beverage hose to pass thru into the tank, in an attempt to keep most contaminants out.
On Sunday afternoon at 1:30 we departed Ceduna, with many thanks to our Towie (Malcolm), whose ingenuity and "return to basics" diagnosis skills proved their worth. He also provided transport to/from the shops and local knowledge of which shops were open on a Sunday.
Unfortunately, the beverage tube could only draw from the top 1/4 of the tank, and below that, any speed reduction would cause air to be drawn into our makeshift fuel line. This meant that refueling stops were at 240Km intervals (20 litres of biodiesel or WVO), but as we had plenty on board, this was not an issue for us and it provided a prompt for a change of driver and time to walk around while transferring the fuel from the containers to the fuel tank.
We arrived in Mundrabilla WA at 8:45 pm Sunday, covering 557km (the last 70km at speeds of 50 - 75km/h due to high kangaroo numbers and a reluctance to damage my wife's new car.
On Monday, we departed for home (1380km), leaving Mundrabilla at 6am. We arrived home at around 10pm Perth time.
I was back at work on the Tuesday and managed to arrange for my Mercedes mechanic (Klaus) to deal with the issues early the following week. I reconnected the fuel line to the tank and removed the duct tape and beverage tube. The car ran fine on the fuel in the tank. I suspect that the high viscosity of the WVO was too much for the hose connecting the tank outlet to the fuel pipes in the car and allowed some air to be sucked in.
By the way, Duct tape will hold 8mm beverage tube to the roof of the car at speeds of 110km/h for over 2 days. Removing the glue residue is relatively easy - leave the car in the sun for 10 minutes, smear the glue residue with cooking oil and rub the glue residue with fingers until it is loose, then wipe off before washing with detergent and water.
Klaus dealt with all the issues listed in our Pre Purchase Inspection and all the issues with the motor and transmission, which the computer highlighted. We then fitted new tyres and had a wheel alignment done before the car was inspected for licensing in WA. The car had no defect notices applied and is now licensed in my wife's name.
Note to Self: I will only run a blend or biodiesel in this car - the air leak has still not been positively dealt with as it was not evident during Klaus' testing - until the air leak has positively been eliminated.
Regards,
Tony.
tillyfromparadise; cuppatea; dagwill; gilfish; shiner; Westwinds;
Thanks to you all for offering fuel on our trip back to Perth. Special thanks to Tilly and Shiner for the fuel and the encouragement they provided.
Here is the story of our trip home:
We drove from Surfers Paradise to Tilly's place, where he provided us with 240L of biodiesel in 12, 20 litre containers (which filled the boot) and filled the 60L fuel tank.
After spending Wednesday night in their good company, we headed for WA.
We drove 960 Km to Cobar NSW where we over-nighted in a Motel.
On Friday we drove another 960 Km to Whyalla SA where Shiner & Gillfish supplied us with 5 micron filtered WVO. We stayed overnight at Whyalla.
On Saturday, we continued westwards, but around 10km after passing Yalata, we experienced power loss and were stuck on the side of the road, miles from nowhere (Yalata). Passing motorists offered assistance, but none could fix the issue, but we confirmed that there was air in the fuel coming from the tank, despite a near full tank. I had no knowledge of the fuel system on this model (most of my experience has been on W123 and W124 300Ds). My wife had no coverage on her Optus phone, but I managed to get coverage on my Telstra mobile. I phoned for help and soon had a Towie with a tilt tray coming to take us back to Ceduna SA.
6 hours later (8pm) we were delivered to a motel in Ceduna.
The Towie offered to come over on Sunday morning to see if we could get the car running again.
I searched the forum and internet for W202 C250D fuel diagrams and found several hits, including the Russian VIN/Parts book site. As the internet connection was time and bandwidth limited, I saved these to my Notebook PC for reference in the morning.
We confirmed the air issue and purchased some clear beverage tubing which we ran from the fuel filler cap, over the roof of the car to the passenger side of the bonnet, and into the engine bay, without crimping the tube as it passed under the bonnet.
It was attached using a fuel prefilter for our 300D's (which I had brought along, with a couple of butterfly hose clamps, in case they were needed). The prefilter has 8mm OD which worked well with the beverage tube (8mm ID), but the vehicle fuel hose for the fuel supply line was a 10mm hose. A hose clamp enabled that hose to seal to the 8mm prefilter. A fishing sinker, wired to the tank end of the hose helped keep the hose in the fuel. A disposable "emergency fuel cap" was drilled to allow the beverage hose to pass thru into the tank, in an attempt to keep most contaminants out.
On Sunday afternoon at 1:30 we departed Ceduna, with many thanks to our Towie (Malcolm), whose ingenuity and "return to basics" diagnosis skills proved their worth. He also provided transport to/from the shops and local knowledge of which shops were open on a Sunday.
Unfortunately, the beverage tube could only draw from the top 1/4 of the tank, and below that, any speed reduction would cause air to be drawn into our makeshift fuel line. This meant that refueling stops were at 240Km intervals (20 litres of biodiesel or WVO), but as we had plenty on board, this was not an issue for us and it provided a prompt for a change of driver and time to walk around while transferring the fuel from the containers to the fuel tank.
We arrived in Mundrabilla WA at 8:45 pm Sunday, covering 557km (the last 70km at speeds of 50 - 75km/h due to high kangaroo numbers and a reluctance to damage my wife's new car.
On Monday, we departed for home (1380km), leaving Mundrabilla at 6am. We arrived home at around 10pm Perth time.
I was back at work on the Tuesday and managed to arrange for my Mercedes mechanic (Klaus) to deal with the issues early the following week. I reconnected the fuel line to the tank and removed the duct tape and beverage tube. The car ran fine on the fuel in the tank. I suspect that the high viscosity of the WVO was too much for the hose connecting the tank outlet to the fuel pipes in the car and allowed some air to be sucked in.
By the way, Duct tape will hold 8mm beverage tube to the roof of the car at speeds of 110km/h for over 2 days. Removing the glue residue is relatively easy - leave the car in the sun for 10 minutes, smear the glue residue with cooking oil and rub the glue residue with fingers until it is loose, then wipe off before washing with detergent and water.
Klaus dealt with all the issues listed in our Pre Purchase Inspection and all the issues with the motor and transmission, which the computer highlighted. We then fitted new tyres and had a wheel alignment done before the car was inspected for licensing in WA. The car had no defect notices applied and is now licensed in my wife's name.
Note to Self: I will only run a blend or biodiesel in this car - the air leak has still not been positively dealt with as it was not evident during Klaus' testing - until the air leak has positively been eliminated.
Regards,
Tony.
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