When my Euro 1980 -450SL was brought into the States, the guage cluster including the odometer was changed. The maintenace guide went form KM's to the correct level of miles at the next interval.It went from a stamp of 92,295 km to 65436 mi at the US service interval. Is this possible by the importers to correctly set the odometers or did the dealership just use the correct miles through knowledge and not pay attention to the odometer reading?

The timing change was changed at the 80,000 mile mark and the car had additional maintenance at 00862 miles.. The current odometer currently reads 058,XXX not 158,XXX.

I had been assuming that the car had 158K although the odometer said 58K. I wonder though if the car has 65K at odometer change and another 58K for a total of 123k.

The reason it matters is that the current timing chain either has 80K miles or 45K miles, a significant difference.

I tried calling the original owner when the car was bought in the US (1987) but can no longer find them. The records are there, just no clear indication of calculated mileage vs odometer mileage.

The last owner assumed the odometer had rolled over though this is a 6 digit odometer and would reflect that.

Has anyone experienced this that can provide some clarity.
Thanks, Eric

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Eric Boyles
1980 450SL

Another small item perhaps noteworthy is that the first US stamp lists mileage as 065,436 and then the line below it as 08394 (normally the Rep. order no). No other page has this (Rep. order no) with anything written in it. Is this where the dealer is perhaps listing the car mileage and below it the odometer??

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Eric Boyles
1980 450SL

No telling about the true mileage, but if you are correct about the possibilities your chain is in no danger. The only risk to chains in those motors is the plastic rails in the head. We recommend repalcing the rails every 5 years or 100,000 miles. The extent of chain wear can be determined by a precise measure of reatrd of the passenger side cam timing. This must be done as in the shop manual with a dial indicator measuring valve opening against a specification in the TDM (technical data manual). Years agpo when I did more of that stuff, I found that the right cam would retard about 10-12 degrees (to about 10-12 degrees retarded) in about 200,000miles. When I first did this we used to actually correct the timing with offset woodruff keys. Today the labor is too intensive (and costly) so we would just roll in another chain at 200k.

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Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

Stevebfl said: The only risk to chains in those motors is the plastic rails in the head. We recommend repalcing the rails every 5 years or 100,000 miles.
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How much of a job is this in shop hours for the plastic rails only.....as compared to doing a complete chain and related parts replacement?

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1986 560 SEL (159K miles)

Its about a 4 hour job as all the accessories must be removed from the front of both heads. It is really a separate job. We do the rails put the gears and chain back on the cams (at least the drivers side gear must come off) and then roll a new chain through if we are doing that also. Once prepared it is actually less time to add doing the chain, but basically unecessary. Especially for those cars not getting many miles. Many old SLs need the rails every 20k as they are only getting driven 4k a year.

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Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

Oh well...........looks I currently do not have to worry about it any time soon. My 17 year old daughter was drving home from church when a a Ford Expedition turned into her crunching the drivers front fender, hood, grille, etc............

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Eric Boyles
1980 450SL