ChowdaQ XII

Have I talked about ChowdaQ here? I don't see that I have, at least not in the last few years.

I started driving a diesel Mercedes full time back in the winter of 2003, that was my '83 240D "Hammie" that I bought in New Jersey and drove home. Thats a story in itself. Anyway to keep that car on the road I joined the email discussion list on MBZ.org. Back then our main parts supplier was Rusty and at some point Rusty held a customer appreciation BBQ that got nicknamed the RustyQ. Its worth noting that we often referred to Rusty as "Q" in homage to the character in the 007 films as Rusty was the man with the stuff. There were then a bunch of other BBQs, IowaQ, the OkieQ and probably some more I don't recall.

All that was far away from me in New England so I decided we should hold a Q. After much discussion it got nicknamed ChowdaQ. The first ChowdaQ was set for the fall of 2005 or so, I don't recall exactly. The plan was to get together in a park near my apartment and have burgers and whatnot. As is typical for me I really hadn't prepared and the day dawned rainy and gross so I shot of a quick note to cancel and we headed out for breakfast. I didn't spare it another thought but 2 guys did, separately and without seeing each other, show up. Fred, who ended up being a great friend, drove out from near Boston and another guy who never forgave me, came from Connecticut.

Anyway the idea of ChowdaQ then languished for a few years until I met Dwight. I'd taken a welding class in RI and he came out and took my friend and I to lunch. I think it was then that we rehashed the idea of ChowdaQ and without Dwight it certainly wouldn't happen. The first "modern" ChowdaQ was in 2008 and I've always referred to it as ChowdaQ I. The original abortive attempt gets the title of ChowdaQ 0, "the ChowdaQ that wasn't".

The MBZ email list is long gone, with Okiebenz taking over but the ChowdaQ lives on, "The last of the MBZ Qs."
September 2019 was our twelfth annual ChowdaQ. These days we've got a pattern pretty well established and a pretty good attendee list with some really cool cars. The site is Goddard State park in Warwick, RI. Robert Goddard was the father of modern rocketry, the park is the old family estate. Its a great place for a picnic.

I haven't had a Mercedes since we got Angie's Golf. This year my Jetta came incognito. Somehow I ended up with a whole bunch of MB hubcaps...

I think a lot of people come just for the food. Karen makes the Chowda. This is RI chowda, made with clear broth. I always take a picture so Wilton on the email

I cook in the dutch ovens with my old Coleman 413E, this year I did pork tenderloin, I watch the sales at the grocery store all summer for this. I aim for the meat to cook a minimum of 3 hours to ensure its nice and tender.

The last couple years we've done quahogs. If all you've ever had before at steamer clams these are so much better its crazy. These are "little neck" clams so they don't have the big neck like steamer clams do. They're buttery all by themselves and delightful when dipped in butter. 2019 was windy so Roy used his VW camp mobile as a wind break and we taught him how to cook quahogs.
Mary brings a ton of fruit and Fred brings salad so theres always something for everybody.

Kari is a potter and makes prizes that we give out.

At the end we pass around a hubcap for donations which, in the last couple years has paid for everything.

Anyway, if the good lord is willing and the creek don't rise you'll see us back in September for ChowdaQ XIII.

Oil change day!

Just a quick one for your Cyber-Monday.
Decided it was time enough to change the oil in the '84 190D. It'd been either 10,000 or 20,000 miles, I don't recall and I can't find the slip I wrote, or should have written. So I took it for a quick spin to warm and shake things up, then hooked my topsider up and sucked the oil out. It looked like MB diesel oil always does, black and nasty. Something is wrong with my topsider I had to pump it a million times to get all the oil out. Thats no real surprise though, its always been like that ;)

With new oil and a new filter in the 190D I figured I ought to get the lawnmower changed out too so I fired it up, or at least I TRIED to fire it up, it was all fire and no up. A shot of starting fluid go it to go but it quit right away. I finally realized it had no gas...

Whoops, a quick splash of gas and I took it for a spin around the yard to warm up, a quick drain and fill later and its to bed for the winter. I still need to move it back to its wintertime sleepy spot but the garage is FULL of recycling and garbage. I meant to go to the transfer station well before now I really did but I just haven't had time. Hopefully Thursday I'll get a chance since the weekend looks absurdly busy.

200,000!

A big day for my 1984 190D last week:

200,000 miles. When I bought the car it had just over 165,000 and a "broken timing chain". It turns out the timing chain wasn't broken, the timing chain cover was broken. Fred gave me a new timing chain cover and we were on our way. I've found this car to have a lot of deferred maintenance, which is probably how the timing chain cover got broken. The serpentine belt tensioner lives on the timing chain cover and the bearing in the tensioner dries out and starts to make noise. Ignore that noise and it rips the cover apart like on my car.

I also found a dead rear shock and a missing rear shock. From the looks of things the passenger side rear shock broke loose from its lower mount and thrashed around in the wheel well. Rather than replacing it the previous owner just removed it. Fortunately for me he was kind enough to put the bolt back. The first time I drove the car the rear end literally hopped around corners, it was a harrowing way to drive. Lucky for me rear shocks are very easy to replace.

I've had this car for about 3 years now and its been an interesting time, including 3 alternators and now a battery. With any amount of luck we'll have another 3 years and many more miles together.

190D Adventure!

Red 1984 190D 173,000 miles, dead engine and its mine. $250 because the timing chain broke and the engine might be garbage. It might be rebuildable but it might be garbage.
Originally this was to be a parts car for my other 190D. This car is pretty much rust free and mine isn't so I figured a couple body parts, the diff, the electromagnetic fan clutch and some interior bits. Maybe sell a couple bits to recoup my costs and off to the scrapper.

On second look though this is way too nice a car to do that to... It turns out replacement engines are pretty easy to obtain at reasonable cost so I need to talk to my mechanic and see if he's hip to swapping engines or knows somebody who is. This could become a nice driver.

Cold starts

People who drive gas powered cars made in the last 20 years generally don't pay any attention to temperature. Those of us with older diesels (23 and 25!) do, at ~10F my 240D will get a little ornery at -10F it'd be difficult and at -20F it won't start without help. With the magic of the block heater it'll start no problem at all temps.
Anyway if you take a look at Youtube there are tons of coldstart videos. The interesting thing I find in those is that they're mostly from metric countries (not the US basically) so you get "Coldstart, 10C" or "Coldstart -10C".
This winter will be the 6th in which I've driven a diesel car, so 3 winters each the 240D and the 190D plus one winter screwing around with my 300TD. The 190D has a more modern engine and starts WAY easier than the 240D but either way I figure I've got a masters degree in diesel engine cold starts. Let me start by saying -10C isn't cold... Thats 14F which isn't even the beginning of cold. Cold starts at -10F, real cold starts at 0F and bitterly cold starts at -10F. Here in central MA we can expect one or two mornings a winter at -20F which is the start of take your breath away cold. The guys in the extreme north scoff at all this of course.
Anyway what follows here is what you need to know to start your old diesel Mercedes in the cold. This should basically apply to other makes too but I dunno...

#1. Throw that starting fluid away and smack yourself for even suggesting it. The MB is an indirect injection diesel with glowplugs, you use that crap you'll crack a prechamber and the engine is toast.

#2. If your battery is older than 3 years its automatically suspect, if its older than 5 you need to replace it. Don't kid yourself into thinking you can get "just one more year" out of it, you can't. I spent one miserable winter where the 240D wouldn't start even at 15F because the battery was bad. It finally failed completely and I was amazed when a new battery fixed a host of issues. If the battery is older than the toddler next door it needs replacing.

#3. Synthetic oil is your friend, Mobil 1 5w40 is best followed by 0w40. I'm not a huge fan of the 0w40 as my cars both clattered a bit more with it, I don't think it hurt anything but still... 15w50 will do in a pinch if its all you can get. 15w50 will still flow better than conventional 15w40 at cold temps but the other two choices will flow better still. Put a bottle of conventional 15w40 oil in the freezer and you'll see it turns into honey. How well is that honey lubricating your engine when its cold out? If you've got a block heater you can get away with conventional oil but remember you might want to travel somewhere that plugging in isn't an option...

#4. Glow plugs. Marshall used to chide me for my suggesting to change the glowplugs before they failed. He said that glowplugs would go 100,000 miles without being changed. I contend that when glowplugs fail its always at the least opportune time. If you've ever change glowplugs outside at -10F (I have!) you know what I mean.

#5. Water is the enemy. It'll condense into your fuel tank then freeze and you're in trouble. It'll also give a place for algae to live. Treat your fuel tank with a water remover at least once in the fall. I use isopropyl alcohol at 2x the recommended strength once in October sometime. Then I run a bottle of Diesel Kleen (from PowerService) in Novemeber sometime. I use a whole bottle of Diesel Kleen in about 1/4 tank of fuel which is probably 10x the recommended concentration but I never have water or gelling issues.

#6. Make sure you've got winter fuel. When I first got my 190D it had been sitting for months and had summer fuel in it. It would start but wouldn't go in any gear but first. I put a full bottle of Diesel Kleen in and ran it. That car has a fuel thermostat that heats the fuel so after 20 minutes or so I could drive fine. I drove until the tank was mostly empty and refilled.

-The actual cold start -
So its -10F out and you need to start your car. Lets say you don't have anywhere to plug it in either. When I was driving the 240D that was how things went most of the time for me as we lived in an apartment...
Okay get in the car, turn off all electrical loads. You made sure to turn off the wipers last night right? Make sure the heater fan is off too. We're going to need every amp available. Key on, the glowplug light should come on. Wait the 20 seconds or so until the light goes out and then wait 10 seconds more. Cycle the key back to off and then on, wait the 20 seconds again and then again 10 seconds more.
You're only going to get one shot at this, if the car doesn't start you're in the hurt...
Pump the throttle (gas pedal) to the floor 3 times, then hold it all the way down, FULL THROTTLE!
Okay key to start, the engine cranks, HOLD THE KEY ON START. Yeah I know, your dad told you to only crank for a couple seconds, he told you you'd ruin the starter otherwise because it'd overheat. Hey, its -10F, its not going to overheat. If you stop cranking now the car will be harder to start than if you don't and it will thus put more wear on the starter, crank until it starts. This is what momma benz says to do and thus the best thing for your car... Except maybe for my alternate start method, more on that later.

Within 20 seconds you should start to hear encouraging noises. If your battery starts to die at this point it needs replacing, even if the car does start. The battery should be able to crank for a good minute at this temp without dying. The encouraging noises should get more and more consistant (pop.....pop, pop......pop, pop,pop.....pop,pop,pop,pop...etc) don't give up yet keep at it until the car is actually running. Once the encouraging noises are mostly constant release the key and ease back on the throttle. On these older cars when its real cold out if you come off throttle too fast at this point lots of times they'll die, so ease back on the throttle, keep it at high idle for maybe a minute. You've used up a lot of what your battery had to offer, if the car dies now you might have a hard time restarting. My 240D has a high idle knob for situations like this, it'll keep the idle above what it normally would be. I've never had it working enough to try it. I've bought all the parts so I hope to try it out this winter.

So your car is running, take off eh? DON'T hang around waiting for it to warm up. All cars warm up best (most quickly, most evenly) by driving around. That isn't to say romp on it and merge with freeway traffic right away, drive easy for a mile or two and you'll be all set.

-Curt's alternate diesel Mercedes starting proceedure-
So the above didn't work, or you've got bad glow plugs or a bad battery or heavy oil or your block heater croaked or its -20F and your 240D won't start no matter what, what now? I had this a lot that year the battery in my 240D wasn't any good.
Start your pickup truck, its a gasser right? It always starts, no worries. Why do you drive a diesel then? Well economy of course.
Go wake up your wife, you'll need help for this. Get out the strap and connect the pickup to the car.
Let your wife drive the pickup, give her CLEAR instructions on where to go and how fast to drive. Don't make her guess about anything and remember not to yell at her.
Your car is manual trans right? So she doesn't have to pull you very fast so lets say 25mph. A fullsize pickup is better at this but any truck (or car) will do a smaller vehicle may have traction problems so your tower may have to go faster, you'll need to experiment.

So at 25mph you put the car in 2nd gear (maybe 3rd, experiment) and ease out the clutch. Don't just dump the clutch or the tow vehicle may lose traction... Ease out the clutch and you should hear the engine cranking over. You may need to let it crank over for awhile (especially at -20F) before it'll fire. Careful with the throttle here, you don't want to smack into your tow vehicle! Once the car is running and everybody's stopped get out and take the strap off. Put the strap in your car with you, you might need it later...
Thank your wife, appologize for yelling at her, bring her something nice that evening.

-Curt

Hoodwork continues

I have my doubts that anybody reads this but what the hell, I might as well continue in my own private Idaho. I'd always wondered what that phrase "private Idaho" ment. Hail mother internet, click on the link for the Urban Dictionary definition.

Anyway I worked from home yesterday, before work I put some POR-15 body filler on the dings and dents on the 240D's new hood. The stuff is basically fiberglass resin jelly with some fiber material in it. Its not bad but hard to get really smooth, should be strong though and its supposed to stick really well to POR-15.
At lunch I sanded down the filler (my $10 Harbor Freight sander worked well) and used some actual bondo brand filler to skim the low spots. Its important to not use a lot of bondo as its not flexible and will crack and fall off if used in big globs.
After work I sanded the bondo down and hit all those spots with POR-15 again. This time I painted out farther onto the exisiting body work. I also tried to flow a little extra into any little imperfections I found. I'm using POR-15 gas tank filler which is I think just thin POR-15 and it seems to work well for this.

Anyway hopefully today or tomorrow I can sand one more time (need to buy more sandpaper) and start rolling on the color coats.

-Curt