That little tube in the cover, is it in a grommet? if so just pull it out.
If it is welded in, looks like it would interfere with the filter. does your
old filter show any spot where the tube contacted it?

Very interesting.

Charlie

Yeah I pulled the metal piece out and everything went together nicely. I can't figure out for the life of me why anyone would deem it necessary to put that metal piece in-line. I'll try to take a picture of it tomorrow and see if anyone recognizes it. Starting to wonder if someone had several things apart and that got put back in the wrong place, and now it's missing from something else.

Good call - :thumbsup:

Speaking of the hose from the valve cover to the separator - mine is this awful (I assume OEM) assembly that sees to be made of three parts (the elbow on the valve cover, a piece of rigid tubing, and the flexible rubber bit that enters the air cleaner housing). It seems very prone to coming apart. In the photos in this thread I saw what looks like a really nice, one piece assembly. Is that factory?

I got this one from **************. It does not run the length of the cam cover, to reduce heat build up, I guess.
But ask Phil.

I tried those flat hoses and found they did not last as well as the original design. I eventually installed a new OEM setup.

Whose pictures? I sure hope it wasn't mine.

The flat hose was OE on some models. I put one on my '82 300D several years ago. I have been happy with it; it doesn't leak oil from all the joints like the original design.

I bought one of those flat hoses, and where it lays on the edge of the
cover, it was wearing into the rubber from viavration.
had to wrap the hose in that spot.

I does sort of clean up the apperance of the compartment.

Charlie

Turn the cover so that interior nipple on the cover drips right down the air duct to the turbo. You'll burn a lot of oil that way, but that's probably the way it was... either that or it just dripped into the bottom of the oil filter housing.

In a normal steup, the nipple sticking out the top of the oil separator pokes through a hole in the cover, and once the cover is in place, the breather tube attaches directly to it.

It looks like you maybe have a mix-n-match air filter setup with some sort of jury rigged breather hose nipple.

BTW, if there was a small piece of tubing connecting the interior nipple on the cover to the nipple on the oil separator, you must locate it to make sure it hasn't fallen down the air intake and is now poised to enter the turbo impeller (that could cause you a very bad day indeed). Given your troubles, I don't think this is the case, but I'm not there to remember what I felt/saw during dissassembly, so I can't know. I figure you're better warned of something irrelevant than suprised.

Thanks for the reply. I took the metal piece out, and rigged it up as it was intended. The nipple from the separator is now sticking up through the cover and connected direct. After I put everything back together the car now shifts extremely hard. I feel like I am going to get whiplash everytime it shifts and it doesn't seem to know when to shift. Sometimes I will be shifted into 4th gear by the time I hit 25mph. Could they be related? I plan on switching it back to the other setup with the cover nipple pointing directly to the oil separator when I get home to test it. I also accidently disconnected the green pot which I understand has something to do with the vacuum and transmission. I reconnected it without problems though.

The vent line has nothing to do with the shifting, you dislodged a vacuum line someplace. Take a good look around and find the vacuum leak. Does the engine also shut off slowly (another sign of a vacuum leak)?

Sure does. It usually takes a couple of seconds to turn off. I guess I'll start my vacuum education as soon as I get home.

Yay blow-by :p