Spent a lot of time over the last couple days trying to figure out the best solution to remoting the oil filter to address the clearance problem with the steering gear.

My first thought was to go with a third party remote, but decided that that route was just too much trouble. I'd have to engineer not only a decent adapter, but figure out a set of filters that would do as good as the stock dual purpose full flow and bypass filter on one. And then there is of course the issue of setting up a thermostatically controlled oil cooler solution and a clogged filter bypass function as well. There aren't a lot of choices for mounting either.

My solution is to use the stock filter and move it up about 4 inches and outboard to the fender above the steering gear mount. There is no good attach points on the engine, so I'll mount it on the fender well. I've already fabbed the filter mounting plate and the fender bracket but got shut out from making the engine remote plate because the metal store was closed for the holiday. I'll then use AN10 aircraft fittings and steel braided high pressure line to connect the two (and probably AN6 fittings for the bypass filter outlet to the engine pan. I bought an extra filter housing top in case I decide I need to tap it for a stud for an extra support bracket (or possibly weld one on) to stabilize the top of the filter housing (that housing is big!)

No pictures yet, but I will as soon as things get welded up.

This weekend was half price at the JY so I got a starter solenoid (for manual glow plugs) and a vacuum solenoid (for manual shutdown).

Also scored an instrument cluster with a mechanical oil pressure and a mechanical speedo, so that only leaves the tach as a potential problem. Also got some extra oil cooler line fittings that I'll need to fab up the new oil lines. The plan here is to braze on AN10 fittings to the hard line as transition to steel braid high pressure line.

It's interesting, as this project takes form you start to notice things. For example, in this forum photo of another project, there is no oil filter in evidence, so obviously the builder had the same clearance issue, but apparently elected to go with a non-Mercedes solution for oil filtration and mounted it down out of sight somewhere.