So, I screwed up. Bad. Taking the car to an experienced MB mechanic is NOT an option. Please don't say it, I am well capable of figuring this out so long as I have a little guidance and the right information.

It all started with an exploded vacuum pump on an '83 300TD. The second the pump exploded the car started billowing black smoke and was a little down on power, also very hard to cold start. It ran great beforehand. During the "repair" process a new timing chain was run on as the old one was stretched 16* at 290k miles and new Bosio nozzles installed.

Before we did what I say below, the car would run but poorly and billowed black smoke. Even when turning it over to get it started.

We took apart the front of the injection pump timer to see if it had jammed from the explosion/frozen up as the centrifugal advance plate would not rotate freely on the springs, it gets stuck wherever I turn it to and does not spring in any direction. The springs, pins, and weights appear to be in good shape. We did not remove the entire timer from the timing chain and pump.

Technical issue. While tinkering with everything, a few parts did end up falling into the engine at various times throughout this adventure. A woodruff key, a spring seat, and a pin that goes inside the spring on the timer. 25+ hours later they are out. (When pulling the oil pan to get the pin we found tons of vacuum pump parts.) Because a few things fell into the engine, the injection pump shaft was turned NOT in relation to the timer chain sprocket. Therefore the pump was no longer anywhere near in time with the engine. We set the engine to 24* BTDC and turned the injection pump shaft until fuel started spewing out of the NO. 1 injector line fitting. (This might be the mistake, can't tell if it needs to be 15* ATDC or 24* BTDC) Yes, the spring and whatever-it-is below that were removed like the procedure says. So we think we've now synched the injection pump back up with the rest of the engine. Put the front of the timer back in line with the woodruff key (what a pain in the ass with the springs, pins, and weights!) Get everything back together and think we might be in business. Not.

While cranking the engine it BILLOWS out black smoke and will not run now. It'll fire a little with some ether (without the glow plugs, duh) but won't run. Thought it may just be flooded from how it was running before, but after a while of cranking the engine with the stop lever held down until there was no more black smoke that isn't the problem. Obviously the pump is still out of time.

The next step is to take the injection pump out and align it from the backside with the crank set at 15* ATDC. Right?

What all could have been damaged when the vacuum pump exploded?

Oh on a side note, and I'd like to find the guy that designed this engine and kick him square in the nut sack for not giving it a front cover like every other engine in the world. I swear, the Germans do the dumbest things imaginable.