Well, my radiator sprung a leak. I first noticed some dripp-age at a car show (more on that later) and then noticed my coolant temperature needle rising and falling on the way home from work the next day. There's a store not too far from the base entrance so I was able to make it to a parking spot about the same time my needle was rising towards the 100-deg C mark.
Only the best bottled water for a mercedes ;)
The bottled water got me home where I had a spare radiator, but it wasn't until I got my old radiator out that I noticed the spare one didn't have a provision for the transmission cooler lines. (then I remembered that this radiator was probably associated with the spare engine I declined, that had a clutch... dag gum manual transmissions anyways)
Ordering a replacement was my first idea, but there's the time it takes that stuff to get here. I decided try my luck again with the guy who helped me with my brake master cylinder and wouldnt you know? For 20kd ($66) he found and repaired three leaks! (two in the core where the water was coming from, one at the overflow port)
Win!
So that went back in, and out came the fan! (finally)
One thing we learned from our time in Hungary, is BRING EVERYTHING WITH YOU!!!
Financial and storage reasons aside, there were countless times we needed something super simple but had it turn super difficult because we were out of our element. Pipe thread adapters, nuts, bolts, nails, you name it. They all would have been in our junk drawer, but that was half a world away...
In hungary a trip to a big name hardware store was 45 minutes away, and it never failed that whatever you bought wouldnt work/fit/etc. Same thing with ordering from the US via amazon, etc. no matter how many times I put my thread pitch gauge on something, or how many times I measured it, it'd STILL take me three tries to get it right. One time we were trying to buy a hose to make a diaper sprayer and it took us (no joke) 6-months and about $100 for a $7.99 thread adapter...
Learning from that last time, I brought my coffee can this time.
(the coffee can makes all things possible)
And Volvoclearinghouse was right. This thing runs remarkably cooler with that fan gone. the AC temps dropped, the car's water temp is staying lower, the engine spins easier...
But my butt dyno isn't reporting any changes, though. I guess freeing up a couple horses on a 80hp engine is hard to notice :P
Good times.