Well, I beg to differ. There is no mechanic on the planet that can set the valves without any clearance.........maybe he charged you for a job that was not performed?

The additional .05 on the exhaust won't matter...........the valve just won't open quite as far..........it's negligible.

If it's any comfort to know, my 1985 300D has 344K miles, and cranks no problem. Still right spunky too, for a diesel. Well over 25 mpg when I pamper it (like when diesel was $5 per gallon). Point is, there is nothing in particular about 152K that says you should have compression issues, judging from my experience.

It's been a long time, but that surely does sound familiar to me. As I recall, there is the ignition switch. And there is a switch that is associated with the transmission too. Either can make trouble for starting. I think I had the transmission switch changed out to fix mine. Long time ago.

In the past, in an emergency, I have started the car with a jumper wire under the hood. I am trying to remember how I did that.... There is a little plastic box covering some terminals associated with the starter. As I recall, it is on the passenger side, on or near the wheel well. I have kept that little jumper wire in the trunk, just in case. It is a horseshoe shaped piece of single strand 12 gauge house wire. The terminals to which I refer are the same terminals one would use to "bump" the starter when adjusting the valves, if I recall correctly. Somebody here remembers this trick better than I do. Perhaps they will elaborate for us.

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Hank
1985 300D 344K, 1991 300SE 160K

well, i think i've fixed it.

i went back to my indy to have ANOTHER valve adjustment done, to check the work that i did on them. this is when i realized that i had adjusted all of them with the lobes pointing straight up instead of to the right a little. oops. he set them all correctly and i watched a did a couple while he watched and let me learn how to do it and what they should feel like. i'll be doing the job myself in the future, but for now they are spot on.

today i put in the re-re-rebuilt injectors that C Sean Watts had the final say on. according to him, the first injection shop i sent them to got it all wrong and sent me off spec injectors. long story short, he got them set but warned me that they have little life left as they've been re-built three or four times now. anyway....

i put them in today. typical job, EXCEPT i found something horrible under the third injector: THE "E" CLIP FROM THE LINKAGE!!!

it was blackened and broken in two but i believe i got all of it out and none of it fell down the hole. the injector was also blackened around the bottom and the heat shield was black and full of soot. messy. i cleaned it out and set all the injectors and put everything back as is.

the engine was still warm on start up so i won't know until tomorrow if this does it but the engine shake at idle was WAY better than before. no more teeth rattling! shifted smoother, sounded better, drove better. everything looks pretty good!

on shut down it still shakes a little rough but i've got a rack dampener bolt to install tomorrow that should clear that up. we shall see if this is it and my cold starts are fixed!!!

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1985 300D - 1984 Euro 280E AMG Clone (SOLD) - 1978 280CE (SOLD) - 1983 300D (SOLD) - 1981 300D (SOLD)