I managed to break a part on my 83 380 sel today, but I have no idea what it is or does. (See photo for the part)

Two vacuum hose connect to it, one comes from the breather hose that connects the Air Duct to Idle Valve and the other goes off somewhere else. For the time being I bypassed the part by connecting the two vaccum hoses that went to the part to each other. It doesn't seem to make any difference in the way the car starts runs or idles.

Can anybody tell me what it is, what it's supposed to do and where I can get a replacement. I couldn't find any reference to it on the C/D.

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2000 Mercedes S500
1990 Mercedes 560SEL
1970 Triumph Spitfire

70C thermo-vacuum valve. MB number 001-140-62-60
Most likely dealer only.

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MERCEDES Benz Master Guild Technician (6 TIMES)
ASE Master Technician
Mercedes Benz Star Technician (2 times)
44 years foreign automotive repair
27 Years M.B. Shop foreman (dealer)
MB technical information Specialist (15 years)
190E 2.3 16V ITS SCCA race car (sold)
1986 190E 2.3 16V 2.5 (sold)
Retired Moderator

Can you tell me what it does? By-passing it doesn't seem to change the car's performance in any way.

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2000 Mercedes S500
1990 Mercedes 560SEL
1970 Triumph Spitfire

Allows for accelerator enrichment during warm-up

__________________
MERCEDES Benz Master Guild Technician (6 TIMES)
ASE Master Technician
Mercedes Benz Star Technician (2 times)
44 years foreign automotive repair
27 Years M.B. Shop foreman (dealer)
MB technical information Specialist (15 years)
190E 2.3 16V ITS SCCA race car (sold)
1986 190E 2.3 16V 2.5 (sold)
Retired Moderator

I've always had a difficult time with initial startup when the car is stone cold (first morning start). It will start right up, then the rpms will drop to near zero, the engine will stumble for few seconds then stall but will restart easily. It does this over and over for about a minute, or a little more, then the idle will rise to normal and the car will start, idle and run perfectly the rest of the day.

I have a separate thread running for that problem as I bought another warm-up compensator that turned out to have a different arrangement of vacuum connections (since abandoned as the wrong part). ctaylor738 advised picking out the screens located under the large fuel line connection on the warm-up compensator and cleaning them individually, which I did.

When started this morning the symptoms were much less than usual. The rpms did not drop as low and the idle stabilized in about 15 second instead of a minute or more. The thing is, it was as I was putting the warm-up compensator back in after cleaning the screens that I broke and then by-passed the "70C thermo-vacuum valve."

Could a possible failure of this valve have been the problem all along instead of the warm-up compensator?

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2000 Mercedes S500
1990 Mercedes 560SEL
1970 Triumph Spitfire