After doing a valve job the other day on an 87 300SDL, I noticed some unusual scoring on one of the cylinder bores. Since I'm planning on doing some head work on my own car next month, I was curious if anyone had ever removed a liner from an engine in the car.

The factory method of a complete engine teardown for the replacement of a single faulty or questionable liner seems insane. Certainly there must be someone out there who has removed one of these liners by dropping the pan, removing the piston and con rod, and extracting the liner from above. I realize that the factory tool might not work but making a special puller, then shrinking and extracting the liner certainly would seem possible. I have enough professional experience and a spare parts engine to serve as a guinea pig, so I'm willing to give this a whirl if there's any chance of success.