While we're on this vacuum line subject, i.e., line, check valve, water separator, connector at booster, I have another rant and a question for the experts.
I've seen somewhere here, a couple of comments regarding the color of the right angle connector at the booster. My late 1966 230SL has a white connector with built-in check valve (but badly painted black), so it's probably not original. The line also has a long cylindrical check valve, not a little black and white flying saucer or spinning top shaped check valve, in the line between the white water separator and the intake manifold vacuum fitting. Two check valves in series sounds to me to be a little paranoid (over-kill), so I assume someone wanted it to function and look right in the absence of correct parts.
The EPC part number for the booster vacuum line connector on my late 66 230SL is A 000 430 36 81 and is black without a check valve built in (I just bought one from Authentic Classics). There was a very, very early change but I can find no photo of the early one and it was changed to the 000 430 36 81 about 10,000 cars before mine was built, so that doesn't explain why mine was white with a check valve, unless it came from another car.
The in-line check valve EPC part number is A 000 431 35 07 and shows up on the Authentic Classics site as the little black and white flying saucer or spinning top type, not the longer cylindrical type like mine (which is on all the early MB corporate 230SL photos). I hate it when they do that (change the part without changing the part number).
This appears to be another one of those curses that have settled on me since I've been trying to reconcile the EPC, the BBB, the parts suppliers' parts catalogs, the logical function of the car and the way my car was built (or repaired sometime in the past). This problem is confusing like that recent 230SL glove box hidden vs visible inside screw head conflict between the BBB and what everyone but me knows is right, or the other recent 230SL Clutch Fluid Reservoir Fill Cap Correctness conflict between the EPC, original 230SL factory photos, and the BBB. I'm talking about the ribbed vs scallopped and black vs white reservoir fill cap.
These things started out as me thinking my car was repaired with incorrect parts sometime in its past, but now I'm almost convinced that Mercedes Engineering in the 1960s were their own worst enemy when it came to keeping track of what parts they were building their cars with. This seems to be a three way battle among the EPC, the BBB and Mercedes Sales Brochure photos.
Does anyone have a good handle on the various iterations of brake booster vacuum hose design, including the hose(s), check valve(s), water separator and booster connector?
Tom Kizer
