Thanks for the responses.

Benzmac,

What you sounds the most plausible, I will pull the vac pump as the second step of my exploratory surgery. It sounds like if something has jumped at the bottom sprocket, I need to check the vac pump anyway.

I checked the cam sprocket yesterday and all's well.

Please keep the experiences coming, and I will keep everyone posted.

One of the scariest things is disturging the harmonic balancer after reading all the harmonic balancer nightmares that I've seen here.

Thanks to everyone,

------------------
Larry Bible
'01 C Class, Six Speed
'84 Euro 240D, manual, 533K miles
'88 300E 5 Speed
'81 300D Daughter's Car
Over 800,000 miles in
Mercedes automobiles