I'm curious if it would cause any sort of damage to drive my 240 without the air cleaner assembly for a couple days. Let me explain why.

My 240d was recently had a fuel shutoff valve with a failed diaphragm. I was using the stop lever for a week or so, which always caused the engine to shake quite violently if it had been warmed up.

A few days ago, i noticed an awful rattling noise which i assumed was the air cleaner assembly, and stopped to find that the aluminum on the air cleaner housing had broken off on all points mounting to the rubber buffers. When i purchased the car, the aluminum on the outermost mounting point had already been broken, and the rest decided to go with the violent engine cut-off's.

So I searched ebay and all parts stores i could find on google, and here, and authorized mercedes dealers to find that the air cleaner housing is no longer available from mercedes or any of their retailers. Which led me to search local pick-n-pulls and foreign car junkyards in a 250 mile radius, a lot of long drives, to find all air cleaner assembly's missing from every 240d i found with the same assembly as mine.

I just took it in the my local metal fabricator to have it fixed, since it's the only other option i can think of, but the fabricator wasn't in, and the rep at the desk was unsure whether or not they would be able to repair it. They will get back to me on Monday morning to tell me if they can or not.

Which brings me back to my question, would i be putting my car in jeopardy by driving it for a couple days without it? I have school 10 miles away and its all highway, not a dusty environment, but I'm not sure if the extra air intake from reduced restriction would take a toll on my engine.