Some history: My son purchased a '92 300CE this fall, 113K miles. Ran fine when we bought it but soon developed a slight miss on acceleration. Took it to an independent shop... had the throttle body cleaned and the rotor replaced... along with other needed service. Did great for a short while but soon the hesitation was back along with other symptoms - occasional ABS light, cruise control malfunction, reverse lights sometimes inop., A/C not cooling. I searched the forum archives, replaced the oxygen sensor, and was about to order an OVR, but then... the car's symptoms progressed to rough idle, then to occasionally dying, finally to... dead. After towing his car home I started checking and found the distributor assembly completely disintegrated. It appears that one of the bolts that hold the rotor onto (what I think is) the rotor adapter, came off, and chewed up the inside of the cap along with the rotor and adapter. I am confused because there is no bolt that holds the adapter onto the camshaft... I was able to just pull the adapter off. I am trying to buy the necessary parts from MercedesShop.com but need to know all the parts required. My questions are...
1) Is the part that the rotor screws onto the "rotor adapter"
2) What holds the adapter onto the camshaft?
3) What is the plastic part of the distributor that is behind
the adapter that the gasket and cap fit onto?

And in general...
1) Is this car one of the ones plagued by wiring harness issues?
2) Should I go ahead and replace the OVR on principle?
3) Are there other problems consistent with the symptoms
that I should check?

I appreciate the wealth of knowledge available on the forum and your willingness to help.

ther should definately be a bolt holding the rotor bracket on, they some times crack in half from fatigue, did you look inside the hole and verify there wasn't a bolt? did the independent shop forget to put it back or was it already missing? normally when a rotor is replaced you do not need to remove the rotor bracket. the plastic part is designed to keep out moisture and dust, look at the picture i have attached it illistrated the area, 11 is the rotor bracket an 14 is the rotor bolt, 17 is the plastic piece. the numbers are this
bolt 104-990-05-22
bracket 104-158-04-40
rotor 104-158-02-31
dist cap 104-158-01-02

i believe i have a new ov relay for that model if you need it, let me know

The bolt holding the rotor bracket to the camshaft was definitely not in the distributor... don't know if it was left out by my shop or if it wasn't there when they got it. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt because they were very good on the other service... and reasonable. Do the hex machine screws that hold the rotor to the bracket come with the rotor or need to be ordered separately? Part #?
Thanks

Common problem. There is a T30 torx bolt that secures the rotor driver to the camshaft. Approximately $4 at the dealer. Replacement of the bolt and rotor driver are actually considered a service item when replacing the cap and rotor (at least by some dealers).

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'98 Lowered Integra with neon underbody lights

the part number is in my original post, i had called it a screw beacause mercedes called it that, i changed the name to bolt, that is the part number next to it, look at your invoice and see if they charged you for the rotor bracket, they should have given you an itemized invoice of all repairs and parts used,