W201FTW

05/10/2026

I was able to get a remanufactured fan bearing bracket from the dealer. Installed that today and put the motor back together.

There is a small gap between the pulley fl**ge and housing of the bracket. A small gap needs to be there so the fan pulley does not rub against the harmonic balancer.

Now there is maybe a 2mm gap between the fan pulley and the harmonic balancer.

Turned the engine on and revved it a few times in the garage. I'll drive it to work on Monday and get a feel for if the lighter harmonic balancer made any difference or not.

05/10/2026

I was able to get a remanufactured fan bearing bracket from the dealer. Installed that today and put the motor back together.

There is a small gap between the pulley fl**ge and housing of the bracket. A small gap needs to be there so the fan pulley does not rub against the harmonic balancer.

Now there is maybe a 2mm gap between the fan pulley and the harmonic balancer.

Turned the engine on and revved it a few times in the garage. I'll drive it to work on Monday and get a feel for if the lighter harmonic balancer made any difference or not.

05/06/2026

05/04/2026

M104 4th version harmonic balancer is lighter by 1.2 lb.

Pulley diameter is the same.

Overall diameter is about 1/2 inch smaller.

Main bolt has been changed from 10.9 to an 8.8. A conical washer is used in place of the 4 stacked washers.

05/04/2026

I was working on one of my later model M104s earlier in the year and realized that the harmonic balancer is a different design and lighter than the one I was using on my early CIS M104. I looked it up in the factory manual and was able to confirm that it is a newer design and is lighter.

I went to the junkyard and pulled one from a W140 S320 1997. Cleaned it up in the ultrasonic and gave it a fresh coat of paint.

I figure since I'm down here dealing with the fan bearing bracket, not much more work to change out the harmonic balancer.

05/02/2026

An 8 year old problem has fully manifested itself as a fu**ed up bearing by good old Febi reboxed Chinese parts.

8 years ago when I installed this fan bearing bracket by Febi, I noticed the fan pulley was riding right over the harmonic balancer. I couldn't figure out why at the time and the solution was to use a spacer on the pulley fl**ge to push it forward so it doesn't touch anymore.

Worked fine until now.

Started getting all sorts of weird noises up front so I took the car apart today and found the bearing is completely loose in the housing. The only thing holding the bearing in place is the pulley fl**ge itself.

It is obvious to me now that the bearing was not fully pressed into the housing from the back. Over the years, the fan belt must have pulled the bearing forward to where it wants to naturally run and either ruined the bore or unglued the bearing from the bore, or both.

I have a brand new in box genuine Mercedes-Benz branded fan bearing bracket for 3.2L M104 for one of my other cars. I took some pictures to illustrate how the bearing should be sitting in the housing. Unfortunately I cannot use this part, as my M104 is the 3.0 version.

I can only find 104 200 05 28 as an aftermarket Uro part. I already had a bad experience with an M103 Uro fan bearing bracket maybe 20 years ago. Reluctant to try again.

Not sure what to do here.

05/02/2026

An 8 year old problem has fully manifested itself as a fu**ed up bearing by good old Febi reboxed Chinese parts.

8 years ago when I installed this fan bearing bracket by Febi, I noticed the fan pulley was riding right over the harmonic balancer. I couldn't figure out why at the time and the solution was to use a spacer on the pulley fl**ge to push it forward so it doesn't touch anymore.

Worked fine until now.

Started getting all sorts of weird noises up front so I took the car apart today and found the bearing is completely loose in the housing. The only thing holding the bearing in place is the pulley fl**ge itself.

It is obvious to me now that the bearing was not fully pressed into the housing from the back. Over the years, the fan belt must have pulled the bearing forward to where it wants to naturally run and either ruined the bore or unglued the bearing from the bore, or both.

I have a brand new in box genuine Mercedes-Benz branded fan bearing bracket for 3.2L M104 for one of my other cars. I took some pictures to illustrate how the bearing should be sitting in the housing. Unfortunately I cannot use this part, as my M104 is the 3.0 version.

I can only find 104 200 05 28 as an aftermarket Uro part. I already had a bad experience with an M103 Uro fan bearing bracket maybe 20 years ago. Reluctant to try again.

Not sure what to do here.

01/13/2026

Let the part cure overnight with the new clearcoat. Admired the new finish and reinstalled the part. Came out really nice.

01/12/2026

The paint on my M104 spark plug wire cover was falling apart and I wanted to repaint it with some higher quality material and a better process than what I did 8 years ago or so.

I started by stripping the paint off and neutralizing/cleaning the part with some water. I used a scuff paste to help get all of the corners and edges of the letters ready for paint.

Adhesion promoter was applied to the sanded plastic surface followed up by a 2k primer.

To get the painted letter effect, I tried a new method. I sprayed my silver (DB735) and clear coated the part letting it cure overnight. The next day, scuff it up with 800 grit / gray scuffing pad with the scuffing paste and then spray the black basecoat (DB040). After letting the basecoat fully dry, wipe the black basecoat with some lacquer thinner to expose the silver protected by the first layer of clear.

Afterwards, clear the entire part and let cure overnight again.

09/27/2025

Been a while since I've been to a Saturday morning car meet.