Well fellas. Now it's my turn to tell ya' about my latest problems.

My '84 500SEL was experiencing a problem with hard restarts. I took the car to my local independent and he replaced a check valve that he said was losing pressure and causing it to have trouble restarting. I also noticed that my fuel pump had been buzzing for the last year and I remember you guys saying that it was a sign that the pump was gonna go. So I had it replaced as well.

I got the car back on a Friday and drove it thru the weekend. It ran fine and restarted fine. On the following Tuesday I noticed that it was starting to have trouble restarting again. I called up my mechanic and he told me to bring it in and he will look at it as soon as he could get to it. After talking to him, I stopped at a restaurant to get a bite to eat and when I went to restart the car, it wouldn't start at all. It would crank but it wouldn't start.

To make a long story a little shorter (I know it's long already), my mechanic looked at it and said that a timing chain rail broke and the pieces went all over. Also all of the valves in the right bank are bent. He quoted me close to $4grand to fix it.

Now you can see why I'm cryin' in my beer.

Does this sound like something that I could do with a knowledgable friend for substantially less?

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Frank
84 500SEL EURO 101K ( JUST LIKE MY 1ST WIFE. GLAD TO GET RID OF HER! )
85 300D 310K (sold)
90 350SDL 184K sold
83 300D 118K (sold)
88 300E 153k (sold)
93 400E 105K (sold)

Beware! This is a hard job that even experienced techs dred. It is long and hard to do even with the right tools.

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Benzmac:
Donnie Drummonds
ASE CERTIFIED MASTER AUTO TECHNICIAN
MERCEDES SPECIALIST 11 YRS

Thats a lot of dough! Unless "The Shop" sells rebuilts, I would think about checking into Adsit Co's rebuilts...they are 4995.00 and I spied a 10% off form on the flyer that I got in the mail recently...bringing it down to "a mere 4500.00" ..."only" 500 bucks more than the figure quoted for the repair, and you end up with a rebuilt engine, rather than a repaired one. Of course you'll have to dig out your money tree from under that foot of Snow that you got today, first!
Before going with Adsit or any other vendor of rebuilts, I would ask around for references first.

-Larry

Oh yeah! Stop crying in your beer, it's probably domestic and watered down enough already!

[Edited by Larry Delor on 12-11-2000 at 11:21 PM]

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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

This must be the week for rebuilts. My Suburban (4x4) went in last Saturday for a rebuilt engine, and Monday it snowed 14 inches north of Pontiac where we live!

I got stuck 4 times in the Audi, and managed to unstick it 3 times The E300D only got stuck once. The front tow hook on the E300D is really easy to get to and saves a lot of grief! Ditto the rear tow hook on the Audi.

Pass me some of that cryin' beer

BCingU, Jim

If you've done one benz valve job, you can do it again. If you've never done one, now probably isn't the time to learn.

The alloy engines have several gotchas, including threads in the block stripping out.

You can probably find a used engine w/o too much trouble. Once you find it, go ahead and try and fix this one if you have the time & money to practice.

You're looking at upwards to 900$ for parts+machine work on just a valve job. That includes new guides, gaskets, getting the various fasteners cleaned and etched (or just replacing them), all the rubber hoses. You'll spend more if you decide to rering the engine, since "you'll be in the neighborhood".

There are several execellent sources of parts mail order for the job, http://www.epsparts.com/ & rusty@mbz.org & bigbabbo2000@hotmail.com are my favorites.

Be prepared to pick up about 140$ worth of specialized tools for the job. There are two specialized allen key sockets to remove and install the head. There is a specialized tool to remove the metal pins that hold in the timing chain rails. These are unique to the mercedes benz.

Lastly, don't forget to budget time. It takes me a weekend to tear apart a motor for a valve job. My machinist takes the better part of a week to get around to telling me what size guides he wants and then the following week is spent getting the work done (he's a busy guy. He handles all the machine work for several Long Island dealerships). Finally, another weekend is spent reassembling everything.

Last time, a 3rd weekend was spent finishing up the reassembly and getting the car to run just right. It was a 73 350slc that I bought in the state you're talking about. It was a rust bucket and the engine was blown. It's now a happy engine sitting in my garage, waiting for transplant into a 250se/c. The body was parted out as soon as I was sure the engine was back in one piece.

-CTH