Location: North of Narvik / Norway
Odo: 287950

Something was feeling wrong with the handling of the car. Only slightly, maybe it’s just the bad roads or my mind playing tricks on me since I always worry something could break. Over the last couple of days I had a look at usual suspects like the engine mounts, drivetrain mounts, shocks, … and eventually started shacking the tires. A quite familiar knocking noise on the front drivers side: a wheel bearing… Luckily almost all mercs from the 70s-90s have the same, adjustable mechanism so you only have jack up the wheel and to remove the grease cap to adjust some nut.

Something is wrong on this picture...

There actually is a reason why the caps protecting wheel bearings are called “grease caps”. They are supposed to be filled with grease.

This isn’t. The other one wasn’t neither. By coincidence (or clever packing?) I got a tube of SKS bearing grease on board, so I packed both caps with sufficient grease. After a facepalm and some cursing. I guess the bearings will hold until I’m back at the workshop in Hannover, so there’s just another item for the “take care of soonish” list.