Help... my 1st valve adjustment. tips please
 

Am attempting my 1st valve adjustment this weekend. Have looked at thomaspins site and also have the video from FLIX. I do have the special wrenches from mercedssource also.

Is there anything else I should be checking for while I am in there? I do have lots of blowby, but runs very smooth and starts right up. I see a new post that suggests checking the "oil tube". Where is this?

Thanks for everyones help.

Check the chain for wear also.

Have you done a search on this forum for instructions on this ? There are several really great threads from the past...
You should also be searching for a shop manual... they tell things which can not be expected to be found on this or any forum...

I'd say the key is tightening the lock nut without effecting position of the adjust nut. Using the two dog-leg wrenches you can also consider the position of the wrenches as indicating how much you are moving the adjust nut..... generally a small fraction of a turn, possibly 15 degrees is all you need. On torquing the locknuts you will feel the wrenches bend slightly, telling you how much pressure is being applied.

Another thing you will discover is silver paint on mercsource wrenches flakes off easily into silver paint dust..... this bothered me, so i scraped off all the paint on wrenches before beginning the operation.

The oil tube mentioned in the camshaft thread is the pipe with holes that shoots oil on camshaft lobes. Good luck with this project - its easy and enjoyable with instant results.

<edit: its also an excellent oppurtunity to pack acclerator linkage ball sockets with axle grease..... another improvement i made was loosely stuffing a small wad of wide fiber stainless steel wool into the breather pipe under the valve cover to collect oil from vent fumes that run to the air filter and presumably return the oil to the engine when the car is shut off.

Leatherman, am willing to bet this forum contains more information than can be found in any collection of shop manuals... stuff like upgrades and interchangeabilty of parts, year and model discrepancies and homespun remedies and tips that cant be found anywhere else.

It may " contain " all the info on some things... but the problem is that it may be scattered over 30 threads... .and there is often " muddy " info interspaced.... and no way for a new person to sort the wheat from the chaff....
But having read the manual on several processes I am always amazed at the warnings and ways of doing stuff which does not make it to the threads... and particularly things like upgrades... there are often THREE changes in one engine run on any particular item..and often if you upgrade that item you need to follow up with some part which goes with it for long life and durability.
So I say the safe thing to do is find a Haynes manual for good pictures, get a Factory Shop manual for the more detailed instructions and warnings and part numbers and then read them.... then look on the board to see if any good tips or problem solving has been published here...
The idea of using the forum INSTEAD of the manual is not logical.

One more item not mentioned...
 

Patience, patience, patience...

Just relax, breathe every now and then and take your time. The 1st time you will notice that after trying to lock down the adjusting nut it will move the adjuster. Just takes practice to figure out where the wrenches should be during the tightening operaion to get the appropriate result.

After adjusting i always turn the engine by hand all the way through again and check them...