I took a good long look inside my valve cover (without removing it) and the scoring I mentioned earier isn't really all that bad. Its obvoiusly scratched by the rocker arm, but I touched it and my fingernail doesn't really grab on anything. I stuck my bore-o-scope in deeper and couldn't see anything broken, misaligned or otherwise out of the ordinary. With the engine running, there's oil coming down frrom the tube in every spot. I bet it's a collapsed lifter. or something else. Starts fine and idles with a little miss, but that developed recently..

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RIP: 80 300SD
RIP: 79 450SEL
2002 E430 4matic (212,000km)
2002 ML500 'sport'

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