[R129 SL] Oil leak follow-up

[MBKindOfGuy]

Good point on the shrinking gasket Peter.  Though I am surprised with the small size of the bolts that they used on the pan.  On my 300E's those bolts are much larger.  Still I wonder why MB didn't use loctite on the 129 oil pan bolts.  While we don't know for sure if it's a shrinking gasket or bolts coming loose, it's a pretty easy job, so looks like I'll replace it.

I too am fanatical about other bolts throughout my cars and do check them from time to time.    

Thanks for the reply.

Regards,
Howard M. Ginsberg
1998 SL500, 59KMiles
1993 300E, 126KMiles
1988 300E, Sold at 165KMiles
1986 300E, Sold at 180KMiles


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Shelton 
  To: SL Mailing List 
  Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 5:14 PM
  Subject: Re: [R129 SL] Oil leak follow-up


  Hi Howard,

  The nuts will be 'loose' as the gasket will have shrunk - a time problem.  A new gasket is suggested, but I would not recommend the loctite.  Loctite is not normally used on the sump nuts so inserting it into the holes may not help.  

  I have had a similar issue on my "orange roughie" - a 1979 W123 - 2.5 litre engine.  In this case, I just tightened up the nuts and it has been fine for 4 years and 85,000 km so far - still not leaking.  

  Could I also suggest that you just check all the nuts in the engine bay.  I check all the cars every year or so, as I bought an old Honda CRX a few years back (for the kids to drive), and the engine made a slight clunking noise on acceleration and deceleration.  On checking, the engine only had one nut left for support instead of the normal three, and two nuts were missing from the gearbox/ engine nut cluster .  I found other nuts loose, or missing and this one incident prompted me to check generally all the easy to access nuts etc on every car on a regular basis. 

  Funny as I have always checked the motorcycles nuts etc (except the one that rides the bike!)

  Have a great day.  
  Kind Regards
  Peter S

  ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: MBKindOfGuy 
    To: R129 List 
    Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 10:55 AM
    Subject: [R129 SL] Oil leak follow-up


    I wrote to this list last week about an oil leak on our SL500 for a couple of months.  Not terrible, but
    definitley not good since I needed to have newspaper under the car.  This is a 1998 SL500, 119.982 engine.

    Fortunately this problem looks easy to fix.  The oil pan bolts were all loose, every single one of them, especially the ones at the rear of the pan, which I got 1/8-1/4
    turn on, and I haven't even torqued them to spec yet (9nm).

    Anyways, next weekend I'll be doing an oil change along with the 60K service.  Sort of a good time to replace the pan gasket.  Pretty simple, it looks, since there are no cross-members or other body or suspension parts in the way of lowering the pan.  I'll be checking things over this week and am thinking that when I drain the oil, if things are not leaking when I drain the old oil, I may just take the allen-head bolts out one-by-one and put a small drop of blue loctite on them.  All of them were loose on the car today, so by quite a bit.  Perhaps the loctite will help keep them from loosening again like they have in 8 years, 60K miles.

    Curios as to the R129 list recommendation.  Would you recommend I replace the gasket next weekend, which is an ideal time given I'm draining the used oil for it's change?

    Regards,
    Howard M. Ginsberg
    1998 SL500, 59KMiles
    1993 300E, 126KMiles
    1988 300E, Sold at 165KMiles
    1986 300E, Sold at 180KMiles

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