Beagle,

Thanks for the reply.

My gut feeling is that Jim Smith is right...the old "seals" are still in there - they just don't look anything like the new "shields". And as psfred noted, I should just leave well enough alone as long as things are working properly and there are no leaks.

The manual makes reference to NOT using the old-type seals when replacing the originals - it says to use the newer "resilient" shields only.

If Jim is right, the older seals sit almost flush with the bottom of the chamber (according to Jim's description, a part of the older seals actually goes through the hole in the chamber). The new shields wouldn't protrude through the hole in the chamber as far as I can tell (but I may be wrong about this).

I think that because the old seals sit so low in the chamber and the new shields have a concave bottom, the old seals and new shields do not really interfere with each other (I got lucky?).

Alternatively, someone may have removed the injectors at some time in the past, removed the seals, and then failed to replace them. This is VERY unlikely as I have the entire repair history of this car (it's been in my family since bought new), and there is nothing that suggests any repair work that would have required removal of the injectors, needless the seals.

So, MB never put seals in my 300D or the seals were removed and not replaced or I have 2 (1 old and 1 new seal) in each chamber.

Whichever way, things are working VERY well, and I think I'll leave it alone unless something happens or someone suggests a good reason for going back in and extracting the older seals (once again, if there ever were any older seals!).

What do you think?

Robert