It’s getting cold. If you have a diesel, that means that you might want to fire up the block heater. My ’95 E300D is new to me. I did not know if it even had a block heater. A bit of research determined that it does, and I believe that all diesels from at least 1995 onward have block heaters. BUT…they are not wired, unless you or the previous owner took the car back to the dealer for the free heater cord install. (Canadians and the rest of the world – it may be different in colder climates.) Look behind the small removable rectangular section of your plastic front grill on the passenger side to see if the cord is there.

So, I looked, and my cord was not present. So I ordered one – it’s cheap, as it should be. Here’s how to install it. An easy one-beer job.

First jack up the front of the car, place your jack stands, and remove the plastic belly pan, if you still have one. This photo shows what you see when looking down from the top side. The heater is located on the passenger side of the engine block, below the exhaust manifold. It has a black plastic cap on it, assuming it is still there.

Because you are working next to the exhaust manifold, wait until your car is cold to do this job.

The cap was tight on my car so I used some slip joint pliers to grab it and loosen it enough to remove it by hand. It’s a tight fit, but you can reach it from above without much difficulty.

Attached Thumbnails