Just had my '97 E300 crossover pipe off yesterday, to finally replace those fuel line o-rings. The black bracket had to come off. I removed the 2 10mm hex bolts from the cross over pipe, then removed the top two bracket-to-engine bolts, leaving the bottom one (no. 5) in but loose. Then start wiggling the crossover, she will eventually come out, egr side first. Putting it back was a pain though. IP side first, I ended up lubing the big o-rings with vaseline, and used a 1lb rubber mallet 'convincer' to finish the installation, very gently convincing the connections to mate. Don't forget to get all that carbon crud out of the crossover pipe by whatever means you can think of.

Long story short, my delivery valves are leaking badly (drop every few seconds), just ordered the socket and washers/o-rings. Weekend IM coming off. Glowplugs while I'm there. 92K mi.