Mercedes SL500 ABC Suspension 2 - Life Span: When is Enough Too Much

foreign to part two in my series on Mercedes ABC suspension this is my own SL500 and you know I've been pondering if you watch part one you're probably still wondering what I'm pondering about I need to say right off the bat I'm very pleased with all the comments I've received from that first video so if you haven't seen it you need to go back and watch it I'll put a link in the description below this video but the comments are really good most people complied to the rules they stated what they own and they stated the problems or the successes they've had with the system and I want you to know I really appreciate all of you who took the time to do that okay so in part two the same requirement applies you need to have owned one of these cars or own one and then you can make a comment if you don't specify that in your comment you know I'm just going to use a little button and delete it I hope you understand why we're looking for facts we're looking for Solutions now what I did this morning when I got out the shop is I went ahead and pulled the rest of these plastic panels off to do the complete inspection of the ABC system and I want to take you around now to each wheel well show you what's in there because when you look closely at all four of these you realize you probably only need to remove two of them to do a complete inspection on this suspension system I'll start here with the right side rear wheel well and if you look closely there's not much at all related to the ABC suspension inside this wheel well you have the strut that would need inspecting which would mean looking for evidence of a torn Boot and also looking for any leaks which are going to end up down here by the bottom of the strut so even though the liner is in place you still should be able to look underneath and inspect this strut because that's really all you need to do on this right rear section there's not much to see either on this right front fender well you can see by removing this forward panel you've got a few things in here including this auxiliary water pump for your climate control at least if you're having climate control problems you might want to make sure this pump is running so the only thing you really need to inspect here is the strut for leaks and torn boots you can see that rattle and of course you may have it hydraulic leak here on this quick disconnect where the line attaches to the strut so this can all be inspected without having to remove the liner here I'm at the left rear fender well now and this is a very important area of inspection right here there's a lot going on in here you have two accumulators maybe some of you are wondering where are those four accumulators anyway well I'm going to get to show you here now in this scene and in the next scene you have the one large accumulator right here and then back in here is another accumulator then you have this blocking assembly in all these hoses look at all these hoses so even changing the accumulator is going to be kind of a messy job and it's going to take a while so you know I've got the accumulators so now I just have to decide whether I really want to go to all this work to replace them but fortunately I'm not seeing any evidence of leaks in the hoses in this area here and as you saw in part one I do have this issue with torn boot on this left rear strut now I noticed walking around the car that I have tags on all three of the other struts they look like they've been replaced but this one hasn't so rather than just you know pulling this out and changing the boot I will probably change the entire strut if I opt to go with this repair now I'm up front at the left front fender well and as I had shown you in part one I'm really concerned about these hoses here there's a little leak here which is probably affecting my sensor but I saw the leak down here at the Swedge joint but I'm also picking up a lot of weeping from this hose it's actually weeping from the inside out and this is my big concern right here that issue right there because of the age of this car is a big problem in my mind and right above these lines here you can see this is the location of the real small accumulator which is not difficult to replace in this location removing that forward plastic cover under this left front fender exposes this right here and this is a real key area to inspect right back here you can just see it this is the location of the other big accumulator right behind all these hoses in this valve block assembly if you look closely there's some wetness here and there's some dampness down here in this panel so this is a concern it is the concern of age of every one of these hoses and it looks like you know I'm picking up just very minor leaks here and this is obviously a very fun area to work in you can see that just by looking at the complexity and this is another area of concern that I have as I think through how I want to proceed on this SL500 when you do your 100 hour inspection on your ABC suspension you don't even need to remove the two liners on this right side everything is on that left side you open up those liners over there and get in there and start digging around you know what you're looking for and there's something I saw over on that left front side that kind of gives me my biggest concern it's not that I can't replace the accumulators you know it's not that I can't replace the pump or even that strut in the back it's the hoses literally it's the hoses that worry me I've been around old Mercedes for over 30 years and there's something about 18 years I don't know what it is I've kind of proven this many times with these old cars 15 years old you're okay 20 years old well things start to deteriorate at a rate that makes it difficult to keep the car maintained to be a reliable daily driver this car is 20 years old and you saw the hoses starting to show signs of weeping particularly one now when they weep like that that means they're leaking from the inside out which means they're rotting from the inside you get this a lot with brake hoses well you get with these hydraulic hoses when they get that old they start shedding inside think of where all that stuff's going so even though I replace all those parts that were sitting on my bench plus more am I really going to be able to fix this system so it will be reliable now let's go back to part one I made the statement you know I've only driven this car 8 000 miles in six years and I asked you if you had thought about why I think some of you can probably answer that question now okay so I have a decision to make back to pondering I'll probably make the decision in the next couple days based on what I've seen here during this inspection now I have three options if it weren't age maybe I'd have more options but think about me you know 20 years ago there's a lot of things I could do and I could inspect myself you know out of any kind of a problem but as I age and anybody else ages sooner or later inspections aren't enough so I have three options that I got to contemplate [Music] foreign

Channel: Mercedessource

Views: 15,327

Keywords: mercedes benz, Mercedes, benz, Kent, bergsma, kent bergsma, DIY, do it yourself, how-to, how to, mercedessource, chassis, model, car, automobile, diesel, engine, fix, repair, cheap, inexpensive, problem, troubleshoot, troubleshooting, fixing, maintenance, ABC, active body control, complex, complexity, fluid, pump, valve, block, hose, hoses, struts, failure, points, reliable, SL500, SL55

Id: I5HAir7GYRw

Length: 8min 25sec (505 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 19 2023