I am having a hard time breaking the camshaft housing loose on a 1995 E300. I have all the upper camshaft bearing caps off and it does not look like there are anymore fasteners. The manual does not mention any thing else.
tia

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Jim

I've worked on this thing all afternoon and have yet to get it off. Anybody got any ideas.

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Jim

Can you put a block of wood on the side and give it a few wacks to help knock it loose?

Scott

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Scott
1982 Mercedes 240D, 4 speed, 275,000
1988 Porsche 944 Turbo S (70,000)
1987 Porsche 911 Coupe 109,000 (sold)
1998 Mercedes E300 TurboDiesel 147,000 (sold)
1985 Mercedes 300D 227,000 (totaled by inattentive driver with no insurance!)
1997 Mercedes E300 Diesel 236,000 (sold)
1995 Ducati 900SS (sold)
1987 VW Jetta GLI 157,000 (sold)
1986 Camaro 125,000 (sold - P.O.S.)
1977 Corvette L82 125,000 (sold)
1965 Pontiac GTO 15,000 restored (sold)

Jim,

I took out cams on a '98 and the cam tower [if this is what you are referring to] is also held in place by pins at the front of the motor. These are the pins that hold the belt tensioner [black plastic piece] on the exterior and a chain tensioner on the interior. The pins are threaded on the inside and you need to screw in a small bolt or use a slide hammer. Hope this makes sense, applies to your motor and helps you. Good luck.

John

I got the pin out before I removed the cam sprocket. I will try the block of wood tomorrow.

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Jim

Thinking about your predicament some more, I seem to remember that the cam towers have several bolts that hold the tower in place. The bolts I am referring to are in addition to the cap bolts that you removed! I believe they are in holes where the cam tower caps mate to the cam tower. They are shorter bolts that hold the cam tower to the head. I believe they are under #2 and #5 but I will double check. These bolts were discontinued in later years and only the cam tower cap bolts hold the tower in place on some models.

Also, I do not know your reason for doing this but I had to take the cam towers off since the rubber seals that go on top of the head and under the cam towers were left out by another mechanic. The missing seals caused a oil to leak into the injector wells at higher revs.

john

Here is a pic showing why I am removing the head. Also, I have attached a pic showing where I'm at this morning. I do not see any additional fasteners underneath where the cam towers came off.

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Jim

That was it John. They are at the 2nd and 5th position and were hiding underneath a puddle of oil. Now, off with the head.

I took a look at the date code on the car and after realizing it was an early production car 02/94 I picked up on the fact that it did have the fasteners securing the cam holder.
Thanks

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Jim

John's good eh?
We hope to see pics of these mystery bolts for reference. Even so, there is ZERO chance I'll ever be that far into my engine. I get the heebe-jeebes just thinking about it.......
BTW, good job with the pics so far. Very interesting. You don't have to wonder for very long what color coolant was being used.....

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

The fasteners were located down in the holes circled. The cavity was full of oil. I stuck my finger down in there and could feel the bolt head. Then after vacuuming it out used the 9mm, 12 pt socket (thin wall) to remove it.

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Jim

This shot shows the area where the head gasket failed. It does not look like there is any damage. Got alot of clean up to do and then will be going back in with it.

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Jim

Be sure that you don't use a magnet on those cam followers to pull them out of the bores, should that be necessary. If they get magnetized, it is very important to degauss them so that they don't collect ferrous swarf.

Thanks for the heads up. How do you degauss them?

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Jim

BTW, that advice is from the FSM. I probably wouldn't have thought of it. The proper way to handle the followers is using a special tool - it's a suction cup sold by M-B.

You use an AC magnetic field to degauss. You start and stop the field away from the part (the distance depends on the strength of the field). Start the field, move it toward the part and all around it, move it away from the part, shut down the field.

There is a special tool called a "degaussing coil" that is designed for this task. M-B calls for one in the FSM, but I don't recall if it is from M-B or an outside tool source (it is actually used for some types of bodywork).

These things are also used by TV technicians to degauss the screen, if it gets messed up too badly for the internal automatic degaussing coil to remove.

However, there is another tool that you may already own. A transformer-type soldering gun works great for this. These are identified by having a copper tip connected to two bars going into the gun. These aren't as powerful as degaussing coils, but I've used them on televisions in a pinch (at the customer's house, with no degaussing coil in the truck). That was decades ago, when people used to get TV sets fixed.