There's a UK forum member (forgot his exact handle, Alli something) who rebuilt many injectors (hundereds of them IIRCC) and says he never lap the injectors (if they were not leaking before the rebuild) and never had a leaky injector after the rebuild. That is testimony that it is not needed unless it was already leaking.

What kind of laping plate did you buy and how much was it? Got a link?

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

What kind of nozzles did you buy and from whom?
I have rebuilt a few sets of injectors and have a commercially made pop tester. If you send your injectors to me I'll see if I can help. Maybe some dirt got in? Are they leaking anywhere? Sometimes the nozzle pin has to be rotated to get a good spray pattern. Send me a pm if interested.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

Yeah, I didn't lap them when I put the nozzles in, and I had one injector leak from the middle afterwords. So I took that one injector apart and soaked the two halves in brake clean for a few hours. Reinstalled, the injector no longer leaked. I'd heard that lapping them wasn't necessary unless, as previously stated on this thread, they were leaking before or you can't get them to stop leaking after the rebuild. So, in my humble opinion, it doesn't seem necessary and doesn't seem to have any correlation with my driveability problems. Seems as though pop testing is more important than I previously thought, however. Thanks for everyone's help!

Seth

Nah, I don't have a Benz shop. I work fleet maintenance for a company. I've got the diesel experience but I'd starve to death working on Benz diesels.

I've had several diesel Benz but I run only gas Benz now. The "thrill" of owning a "smoker" kind of goes away when you spend 8 hours or so a day working on them.

I am always willing to help a fellow Benz'er, even you "rattle, smoke and glow" fellers.

I do not know what to say about what others do.

I worked in 3 different Fuel Injection shops. One for 5 years, another for about 6 months (till I found a another job that paid more), and yet another one as a temp job while one of the regulars was in the Hospital for 3 months.
They all lapped the Mercedes type and other Injectors that had flat precision surfaces.

My personal though is that lapping is more reliable and the places I worked did not want to do any warranty work.

I spent about 2 years of getting out bid on Lapping Plated on eBay and finally got one from a Seller who's name I do not remember. I also do not remember the price; it was a auctiont type sale.

Ceck want they sell for on eBay and you will see even a small used Lapping plate has a good price on it and because they are Steel the shipping is often not favorably priced.

Other comments on Lapping Plates:
Lapping Plates used to be sold in pairs.
There is often a grooved side and a Flat surface for lapping.

After a lot of use the Lapping Plate wears so it is no longer Flat.

You would clean off and degrease the Worn Lapping Plate and use some Bluing (the creamey type one) dabbed thinly over the smooth unused side of one of the other Lapping Plate.
You would put the blued side of the Platd down on top of the Worn Plate and pull them apart.

That would allow you to see the un-blued worn area (most often near the center of the Plate).

To correct the worn plate you get some grinding compound and put the 2 Plates together and start sliding/lapping the Plates againse each other. (This job can take several hours.) (To speed up the job you could send the worn plate to be surface ground.)

When you feel like it you can stop and do the Bluing thing again to see if the Plates are flat.

If it is done correctly you will end up with 2 flat Lapping Plates.

If you lap 2 pieces of Glass together they are also supposed to flatten each other and they can be blued to check that.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel