1990 Mercedes T1 208D AutoTrail Navajo Camper Van

the thumbs-up button seems somewhat inappropriate given the nature of the incident described in the last post ...

Anyway I enjoy reading about your progress and hope there's less blood in future updates!

Every time I do any work on an exhaust I swear that it will be the last time. Today was no exception.

The van's exhaust consists of four main assemblies.

[] Manifold, downpipe and Flexi.
[] Expansion box.
[] Silencer.
[] Ridiculously long tail pipe.

Both the expansion box and silencer one mine are stuffed. The silencer has a heap of holes in and the expansion box suffers from a broken hanger in addition to one of the baffles having come loose so it buzzes like crazy at idle. Pretty sure the main silencer had collapsed internally as well, making the system far more restrictive than it should be.

The expansion box came loose without much protest. The silencer on the other hand...

After roughly two hours of swearing, hitting things with hammers, heating stuff with a blowtorch then burning my fingers on it, I finally wrestled the main silencer off.



I really want to get a better designed stainless system fitted with the tailpipe venting to the side of the van well clear of any air vents, but may just have to settle for a stock system until the MOT is out the way.

So if I remember rightly we had just figured out where the wiring for the offside front marker light emerged into somewhere vaguely accessible. This had pretty much confirmed to me that the mystery wire that I'd stuffed into a corner above the bathroom ceiling was actually for a light at the opposite end of the van...

This left me with a bit of a quandary. Namely that getting access to that wire - which I couldn't even remember if I had trimmed back as far as I could - meant having to tear apart at least a fair chunk of the upper rear wall in the bathroom, the wall I had just spent a not inconsiderable amount of time building.

I did pull apart a tiny bit in one corner to see if I could find the wire by stuffing my hand into the void and grasping blindly. Not a chance. I decided quite quickly to abandon that idea as there was a far easier solution to my mind. Having the lights individually fed from each tail light was a little unnecessary to my mind. Just sticking them in parallel on a single feed seems fine to me. We're walking a pair of 10W festoon lamps (which I will probably replace long term with LEDs - warm white ones before you all jump down my throat) rather than any high power stuff.

This still left me with some work to do, as being a coach built van, all of the wiring and such was routed long before the interior plywood lining was put in place. Initially I wondered if it might be possible to get the upper front trim panel in the over cab locker off. After spending half an hour in there (and nearly dying of heat exhaustion) I ascertained that AutoTrail weren't messing around. The panels are both stapled to the frame *and* glued in place. It ain't going anywhere.

I then decided to take a somewhat more direct (if barbaric) approach as I was done with standing on my head in the locker.

I went round outside, pulled the cover off the lights, found where the cable fed into the van, stuck the screwdriver into that hole then gave it a smack with the palm of my hand, more than enough to punch a hole in the plywood trim inside the van which I could then use as a marker for where I needed to dig out a bit of a hole to gain access.



Likewise on the offside - the mess in the corner there is from my earlier attempts to see if I could get the panel off in its entirety.



It was a quick matter then to disconnect the original live feed to the nearside light and terminate it, and to wire a link between the two to feed them both from the original offside light. I'll obviously make a couple of little covers to go over the holes and will clip the wire in place.



I had taken the lenses off both of them last night to give them a good clean as they were full of pond scum. The seals having disintegrated years ago.



There is quite a bit of crazing on them, but they've cleaned up pretty well.



That was half the challenge...I now had the lights ready to accept power and a wire dangling out of the rear kitchen cupboard...however there was a kitchen and a floor between it and the relevant bit of the vehicle loom for me to tie it in to.

I decided in the end not to go pulling the walls apart again. I drilled a small hole in the base of the cupboard (it has a lip along the front so it's not visible) having pulled the window blind runner and window trim off, tucked the wire into the void under the trim, drilled another small hole in the worktop (again hidden by the window trim), and routed the wire down to the space below down the cabinets. Then I had it follow the sink waste pipe through the floor.



No it ain't pretty. This is a job I can definitely see me coming back to at some point in the future (I'll need to open the walls up really when I reinstate the high level tail lights) but it will at least get the lights working for now.

Once I got it that far I just pulled the offside tail light cluster out and put a piggy back spade terminal on this side and hooked it up to the tail light lamp holder. Glad to see they seem to be fully weatherproof as there was zero signs of water ingress inside the cluster.

The moment of truth of course was to see what would happen when I turned on the headlights.



Hard to see in such bright sunlight, so here's one from a few hours later.



Much better! Seeing that pleases me far more than it probably should do.

On the subject of lighting (as it seemed as good a time to do a full check on it with the MOT coming up and all that) I found that the nearside front indicator was out. New lamp time. This should be a ten second job, if it wasn't for the stupid poorly fitted alarm wiring getting in the way yet again. This thing had been annoying me for months. The entire installation was a mess. This nonsense floating around in the fusebox for a start.



The only fusing to the whole thing being in the *ground* connection didn't instill confidence either.



Twenty minutes later the engine bay looked a good deal less cluttered.





This is the pile of rubbish that was removed.



The interior could then be put back together. Having tidied up the wiring behind the fuse box meant it was far easier to get it back in place this time. Also hopefully has put an end to getting wiring stuck in the seal when putting the engine cover back in.



Before I buttoned that up I drowned the whole rusty area under the heater intake with Kurust.



Also put some tape on this area on the engine side to keep any further water out until I have the opportunity to get a new panel welded in.

Annoyingly removal of the ultrasonic transducer assembly from the top of the dashboard left three holes.



...So I just stuck that back in place. Not that I think a circa 1990 car alarm is likely to be much of a deterrent to would be thieves, it can't hurt. Plus it's a useful thing to attach cameras etc to. It can stay there until I either find something else to take its place or find a dash moulding free of screw holes.



The LED in the dash is staying put for now similarly to avoid leaving a hole. I will be putting an indicator in there to give me a visual indication in the cab of if the power has been left on in the back of the van so I can't forget to switch stuff off before leaving the van or driving off.

The nearside indicator repeater lens is in dire need of a good clean as like the lenses of the marker lights it's been full of pond scum and rust.



Brake pads next. First challenge there will be seeing if I can get the wheel trims off in one piece - if not it will be all the more excuse to bin the horrible things!

I figured that the issue with the brake pad warning system had to be an issue at the wheels. The logic behind this was that the light would come on solidly only when the brakes were applied, it could be made to flicker by rocking the steering too.

The wiring to the sensors looked sound and wasn't shorting out on the anti rattle springs or anything obvious like that.

All four of the pads on the front brakes have a wear sensor in. This is essentially just a wire that's inserted and glued into a void drilled in the brake pads just proud of the backing plate, so that it completes a circuit via the disc to light the warning lamp when the pads have worn down. You can see the hole for the sensor just to the right of the central groove in the friction material of the pad below.



For those not familiar with the brake warning light on the dash of a Merc T1, it performs two tasks. One is linked to a float in the fluid reservoir as on any vehicle. The second function is the brake pad wear indicator. The light only comes on if either the fluid is low or if the pad wear sensors are triggered (and during a self-test when the ignition is turned on, extinguishing when the engine is started). It is NOT a handbrake warning light.

The wear sensors are not fitted to the pads from the factory and have to be inserted and glued in place when the pads are fitted. Now, this hole is blind on proper OEM pads like these (made by Ferodo in this case), but I have seen "off brand" pads where that hole goes all the way through the friction material. What can happen then is that the wear sensor can go all the way through, poking out the other side, meaning the sensor can wind up touching the hub of the disc, giving a false reading to the monitoring system.

Given the behaviour I was seeing I had a sneaking suspicion that this was going on in my case. Should be quick to check at least.

The old "wedge a bit of wood between the brake pedal and steering wheel" trick was used to ensure the light stayed lit until I found (or failed to find) the offending sensor.



While I was situating the pedal wedging device I noticed something odd on the back of hand.



Blue tinted water... there's only one place that will be coming from, the cooling system...and suspect number one is right in the neighborhood.



Figures I found that less than an hour after ordering a bunch of parts from Mercedes (more on that later).

Unplugging the first three pad wear sensors did nothing, however when I unplugged the last one the light went out and stayed out. We have a false positive from the last sensor. I have temporarily disabled it by putting an insulating sleeve over the pin in the connector. I've still got three working sensors, and it's not hard to keep tabs on pad wear. I imagine they will last a decent length of time anyhow given the relatively light duties she's going to be doing compared to normal commercial use a van might see. Will be really nice to drive it without a little red light flickering at me the whole time.

I'll hopefully get her booked in for an MOT in the next day or so to *hopefully* confirm that I don't need to buy anything else.

I made a trip over to my local Mercedes dealer for some parts. They have always been really helpful before, and we quickly tracked down the parts we were after. I was expecting these bits to be a little more expensive than normal car items as they're quite a bit beefier.

The track rod ends were £48 each, yet the whole steering tie rod (which comes with the track rod ends as a unit) is £132. Given they've most likely been on there for 29 years I was rather expecting a bit of a fight to get them off the tie rod...so deleting half the rusted together parts I need to get moving was worth a few quid extra I thought. Likewise the drag link was available as a whole assembly for not a huge amount more than the two ends.

I decided to get the new fan belt while I was there. Yes I do know I could probably have got that a bit cheaper elsewhere but it seemed the right choice given the huge pile receipts for parts during the life of the van for genuine Merc parts.

Not a cheap trip!



On the plus side hopefully these should all be the right parts so should just fit.

The one concerning thing though was that their parts desk has been told that strictly speaking they really shouldn't be selling parts to me because it's a van. I should instead be directed to a commercial vehicle specialist down the road. I've tried to buy parts from them before, however they made it quite clear that because it was registered as a motor caravan rather than a goods vehicle their system couldn't look up parts for it. Oh, and they didn't want my business anyway as private individuals are "too much trouble" which really gave a good impression. Nor did their comment about how daft I was to be expecting a commercial vehicle specialist to have parts for an ancient camper.

One of the big perks of having this van so far has been the incredible parts support from Mercedes...will be really disappointing if that ceases to be possible down to some manager meddling with things... Especially as the staff actually on the parts desk really do want to help.

Assuming that Parcel Force don't foul up this delivery (they have managed to mess up all three this month so far so I'm not holding my breath), my new exhaust for the van should be here tomorrow.

Regarding the parts issue, it's not our parts desk who are the issue. It's an order from on high apparently, an order that one of the two folks I spoke to was just about spitting feathers about how stupid it was. As far as they're concerned the parts come from the same factory in the same truck to the same warehouses and are on the same ordering system... there's no reason for them not to get us the parts.

They don't want every tradesman in the country turning up and arguing about the fact that they can't have every nut and bolt for their clapped out old Sprinter that's leaking diesel all over the car park, I can understand that - but a bit of common sense should tell them that a nearly 30 year old camper based on a nearly extinct chassis isn't exactly going to take a huge amount of their time.

They pointed me to Intercounty Truck & Van if I remember the name right, who seemed to think I may as well have been asking for spares for a 1926 Bugatti because it's more than ten years old. They also seemed to think I had committed a cardinal sin by asking for parts for something not registered as a goods vehicle.

The folks on the parts desk told me that my story is pretty common...which is a real shame as if that's where they are directing me the service offered eventually reflects back on the dealer...which is a real shame as I've been massively impressed with them so far. It's been really nice to be honest the way they've actually seemed to care about trying to be helpful.

...C'mon they even went digging in the parts system to find me a replacement lens for the indicator light on the dashboard. Then we're massively apologetic about the fact that I'd have to wait a day or two for it to be sent over from Germany. Real will be a terrible shame if that's a thing of the past.

Looking good, hopefully the cheapo exhaust will last a while.
Would a stainless one be a good investment? Given that there is not actaully much pipework it might not be too expensive.
The reason that the downpipe bolts came out, is that these are cool running things and it hasn't been roasted up like it would be on a petrol.
Thats my theory anyway!

I know the feeling!

Got everything crossed that you do OK with the MOT. Great thread. Great read!

Let's see what we can do to take a few chunks out of the MOT remedial work list.

First target is going to be the propshaft slip joint boot. It's been in the garage now for a few months waiting to be fitted...let's get to it.



Initially my plan had been to minimise the degree to which I had to dismantle things - hoping that I could get away with simply dropping the centre prop bearing assembly. Unfortunately it turns out that this doesn't give enough clearance to separate the splined section on the rear prop from the socket on the front section. Shame as I'd already removed a couple of bits of the exhaust (which I fitted a couple of days ago!) for access. So had to put them back together again. On the plus side, this did give me the ability to check the state of the bearing on the centre prop carrier - it's silky smooth and has no detectable play in it.

The reason I had really been hoping to get away with removing things from the front was that I really didn't want to have to try to get the bolts out of this.



There's no leak here - things had been sprayed down with Plusgas shortly before I took the photo. I was forced to pause at that point as the nuts on the rear flange on the prop were 15mm...a size which I knew for a fact I lacked a spanner in. No way to get a socket on there because of the proximity of the universal joint...You can *just* get a ring spanner onto the nut on four of them, but a socket was a non starter. This meant that I had to make yet another trip round to Halfords to pick up a spanner.

I wasn't sure whether the entire prop was balanced as an assembly or if the front and rear sections were done separately...so I marked the rear flange to ensure that it was reassembled in the same position as it was removed (I had the handbrake on and the van in gear to ensure that neither end could move).



Once all the bolts were removed the rear of the propshaft was lowered to the ground. It's heavy and especially in the confined space under the van is a bit cumbersome, but isn't impossible to manage single handedly. I did want to make sure that I didn't just whack the splined section on the brickwork of the driveway when I withdrew it though so grabbed an old cardboard box for it to drop onto.



It was then withdrawn from the socket in the front section until it dropped onto the box,



While being careful to protect the splined section it was a simple matter to then remove it from under the vehicle.



On the plus side, it's much easier to work on the prop with it actually free from the van. Especially getting the original metal sprung clip that was holding the remainder of the old boot on off.

Not much left of the old one!



The remainder I believe to be finely atomised and spread over a stretch of the A421 just outside Buckingham.

I then gave the splined joint a thorough clean to get rid of all traced of the old grease and any contaminants. Then it was given a liberal coating of CV joint grease (I must have had that pot going on 15 years now) and the new boot slipped into place.



I gave the bolts all a quick scrub with the wire brush to clean the threads up before getting ready to reassemble things. I'm pretty sure that there was some sort of thread lock used during the original assembly, so got mine out ready to be used during assembly.



It was a pretty simple (if slightly physically awkward) process to slot the propshaft back together and bolt the rear flange back together. By some complete fluke I actually managed to get it lined up perfectly on the first try!

The boot was then fastened in place. This would have been done using metal clips originally but I don't have the special pliers you need to fasten them so a couple of cable ties will have to do for now. I will look to get a pair bought in though as I'd obviously like to get the metal clips in there - they were supplied with the boot after all.



That done it was time to tick a few other things off.

The "missing rear reflectors" was a bit of a head scratcher as they're integral to the tail lights - though if the lights are on it would be easy to miss.



The reflector is plain to see if the camera flash is used.



I'd rather not argue with the tester though, for dug out a couple of reflectors that I had floating around in the garage and stuck them on the back.



The headlamp aim was unsurprisingly miles off given that I had fitted a brand new headlight to the nearside a few days ago. Didn't take long to adjust that back to something resembling a normal beam pattern.



One thing I was reminded of standing there with the engine running is that I really need to fix a proper patch onto the air cleaner assembly as there's a hole in it.



This is on the outside of the filter element so isn't important from an air filtration perspective - it does however result in a boomy resonance from the induction side of things which sounds like a blowing exhaust and is quite tiresome. Might see if I can get that sorted before we leave on Thursday.

Final thing I did for the day was stick a little trim on the exhaust.





A joint effort between it being because I thought the finish on the really cheap exhaust wasn't great so I wanted to tidy it up, and also to shift the tailpipe out slightly so it was venting slightly past rather than directly in front of the rear wheel. Not that the exhaust gas temperatures are particularly high from this engine, but I'd rather not cook the tyre if I can avoid it.

Tomorrow I'll see if the ball joints want to play nicely...I'm guessing not given how easy everything has been so far...Karma is surely going to come back and bite me at some point soon!