In yet another boneheaded move, in a series, I forgot to replace the clamps after I had all of that out, about a year and 4K miles ago. I have it on good authority that w/o them the lines can degrade prematurely.

I can't find them and am looking for the right units. Wouldn't be spendy you would think. Pelican doesn't seem to have them, I have a question in now for their staff.

I found some generic online but the spacing is wrong. I'll keep an eye out at boneyards but I suspect you'd need to get there early.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

yes, you'll need to get them ASAP before the steel pipes fatigue and crack .

I'm sure someone here has a few .

FWIW, I always use a 7MM nut driver and shortie 7MM box end spanner to service them .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Worse comes to worse, I could just fab something but the labor involved is probably worth a lot more to me than the price of some pre-made items. I’m surprise there isn’t some cheapo bag full of them at Pelican or anywhere else.

I’m guessing stainless steel would be the material to go with.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I see them at the yard allll the time, along with the injection hardlines.
I highly doubt you’ll have any issues.

Take a couple of 8mm (sorry Nate) ratcheting wrenches and you’ll be out of there in no time.

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1981 240D 4sp manual. Ivory White.

That would be the ticket. I’m looking at Pick n Pull now for recent arrivals, will keep an eye out for that.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Check out the post entitled Row 52 in the diesel section of this forum. I post almost daily Mércedes diesels located at PicknPull yards mostly in Northern California.

Oops ! .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I'm going to watch it more closely.

There are 3 in my comfortable range - Newark, Oakland, and San Jose. Richmond sort of, but it's a stretch. San Jose South closed.

Here's an odd one. This item was found on a competitors web page, referred to as:

"O.E.M. Fuel Injector Line; Retainer Bracket"

I'm not getting something ...

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

The Cummins B series engines ('80's thru '00's) uses a similar clamp. You might find some of those in the U-Pull-It yards. Commonly used in the Dodge pick-em-ups and many step vans.

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“Whatever story you're telling, it will be more interesting if, at the end you add, "and then everything burst into flames.”
― Brian P. Cleary, You Oughta Know By Now

This does a similar thing but is for later engines and fits into a stamped sheet metal bracket .

-Nate

This style is for the OM60x engines. Take a peek at your 300SDL and you'll see the brackets with these little plastic clamps holding the lines at various locations in the engine bay.

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Current stable:
1995 E320 157K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 125K (SLoL)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

Gone and wanting to forget:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™) [Definitely NOT a Benz]

If they were NLA, no one priced them at a reasonable rate and I had plenty of time I could see manufacturing a set. In fact, if there were rounded corners on these things, over the years I've lost a lot of less blood messing around that part of the engine.

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84 300SD
85 380SE
83 528e
95 318ic

I'm amazed no one has offered up a set ~ I know many here have old junk engines and so on, this is why I kept assembled dead units when I had my indie shop way back when ~ no need to wait a few days for that special bolt or washer from the dealer if you have some old engine / tranny / carby / etc. to scavenge parts off of...

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I really need a rural estate so I can park dead rigs in back. I love getting an oddball bolt from the junkyard that is exactly what I need.

Oh well, if all you had was one back-up set I could see wanting to hang onto them. So I fabbed my own. I was right, it took a while but one hopes this will avoid a scene out on the road someday where I discover a small and growing puddle of fuel under the car.

I've had some large aluminum scrap for some time, have been whittling on it for years. It's about 3/16ths thick, was part of some mounting bracket for God knows what that I found discarded. At first I decided to keep a curved part on the edge each piece, adding some geometric strength but then I realized it was needless overkill. Holding them with vice grips to trim them in the table saw worked nicely. I do get the galvanic corrosion thing, I've seen it more than a few times where some hack wanna-be plumber attached copper fittings directly to galvy pipe.

But I still wanted to use the alum - quick and easy to work. I had some remnants of flat gasket material - a hard rubber about 1/16 thick. Also have some 1/8 thick but I went with the thinner stuff. I attached some of it to one face of the alum pieces with contact cement. Used 1/4 bolts with the nylon bushing lock nuts to attach it. Speaking of over-kill, I even used thin nylon washers at each end of the bolt/nut to separate from the alum. The zinc plating alone was probably enough but the washers were really cheap.



One reason I liked the rubber dielectric face was the fuel lines would bear into it a bit, ideally preventing drifting around. The stock items have little curved bits for that, my approach is easier as a little bit of clamping pressure from the bolts will custom make channels to grip the fuel line.

No idea how bad it might be to have alum bearing directly on the steel injector lines but really no upside in finding out.

At first I made all of them as large as the ones up in the top range of the pic but then made some of them smaller when I realized I needed the room. Also, some portions of these lines are nicely parallel to their neighbors, others not so much, and then they might look parallel from above but be in a different plane. A large flat square might put unwanted pressure on the fittings by pushing or pulling while trying to make the lines equal lattitude. We can see how skinny the stock items are, perhaps with an eye to that issue.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I didn't offer up a set because my spare set is holding my spare set of hard lines together.

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84 300SD
85 380SE
83 528e
95 318ic