560 Cam Tower Bolt
 

Okay guys I think I may be screwed here... a couple weeks ago when removing heads from my '88 560SEL I ran into an issue. On the driver's side, inboard bolt on the rear cam tower, the bolt stripped (hex head stripped, not the threads). It took a great deal of work and a good bolt extractor to pull this bolt without any apparant damage to the heads or the cam tower. The bolt is now junk (obviously). When ordering some other top-end parts for my car I also picked up a couple spare head bolts of each of the 3 sizes. Here's my problem. This bolt is not a head bolt, and even though it has the same diameter and thread pitch, it is a different lenght.

Does anyone know were I can get a replacement for this bolt. I know its not in the parts section and I couldn't find it in another source like Performance. Is this a bolt I may have to break down and to go the proctologist-err-dealership in order to get?

Thanks in advance. I've been taking pictures of the project as it goes along and I hope to post them somewhere when done so people can laugh at my stupidity ;)!!!


Scott

I have run across those exact same stubborn cam tower bolts before, the short ones that simply thread into the head.

If I remember correctly it is the same as the shortest of the head bolts, cheap enough to get even at the dealer.

126nut, Yup those are the ones... actually I only had 1 give me any greif and of course it's the hardest to reach.

They are actually about 5-10mm shorter than the shortest head bolt, plus they are threaded their entire lenght (like that really makes a difference for the task at hand) I have some spares of all 3 lenghts of the head bolts so I'll give a spare shortie a chance and be careful not to bottom it out... if not I'm glad to know its not the end of the world... I just hate tracking down metric hardware in a SAE world!

What kills me is (I just got finished putting my passenger's side head and cam back on... right now giving it some time prior to the final torquing) is that for the cam towers there is 4 of one lenght and one thats a hair longer. Glad I took LOTS of pictures!

Thanks for the responce guys! I appreciate it greatly!


Scott

Should be able to get the bolts where ever you got the head bolts. They have a DIN number if you want to buy them from MB: 000912-010017.