O.K. ;
I got home this morning and went straight to work , buttoned up the brakes , and found some 6MM X 1.00 allen screws to hold the sensor wire plug to the caliper ,
Discoverd the passenger side hose to hard line 11MM ATF nuts was jammed in place ~ it actually slipped on my American made flare nut wrench so I stopped before I rounded it to junk , got a small pair of American made Vise - Gips (" Mole Pliers " to our English Friends) and ever so carefully clamped them tightly on and loosned the joint , tighened the hose to caliper then rotated the flex hose so there were no teists in it , important as the small twist plus the hydraulic pressure will often cause them to rupture....
Bled all four calipers out with my Motion Pro pressure bleeder , it turns out the pressure leaking out of it was the cleap plastic hose connecting the tank to the resivoir cap was dying of old age and sun exposure , I looked in the original box and found a long bit of 3/8" clear plastic hose (I guess I'd bought it long ago as the provided hose is decidedly too short) , carefully loosened up the pinch typ clamps , installed the new , longer hose and ever so gently re squeezed the clamps with a pair of dykes and I was off to the races ~ it easily held pressure (a shade under 5 #) and the bleeding went normally , I discared all the new fluid I ran through it , I'm using DOT 4 brake fluid .
I discovered the wheels I'd washed three weeks ago , were not actually clean ~ rather , the de greaser had sluiced off all the oil and left them covered in nearly 1/16" of ancient brake dust that began flying around as soon as I touched it....
Sigh .
Out came the non metallic brushes and an old oily rag , I cleaned much of the fluffy brake dust off dry then rinsed them down , sprayed with Simple Green abnd went to town scrubbing ~ I can now see most of the shiny original glossy black paint although they're no where as clean as I'd like them to be .
I also discovered I have all five original date coded 15" (!) wheels but have FOUR different brands of original Mercedes 12 X 1.50 MM lug bolts plus -one- that had no maker's mark anywhere on it and appears to have a slighty different thread pitch so I maybe be ponying up for TWENTY (GA$P) new lug bolts from Tom at the Classic Center as some of the otherwise O.K. original bolts have mashed flats from some tire shop boob using the wrong size socket with an impact gun
. it's always something , right ?
.
After I was done (but of course !) I found the box full of missing hardware and 6MM bolts etc. so that's good .
I also found and collected into one box , all the various door checks as I need to service some more for the 240D and Coupe .
All this plus more before Noon , I'm tired
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-Nate