The 420 I owned (broken guides when bought) showed about 221,000 on the odo. My 560 has a new chain installed by PO and it's at 140k.

All I can contribute..

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I'm not a doctor, but I'll have a look.

'85 300SD 245k
'87 300SDL 251k
'90 300SEL 326k

Six others from BMW, GM, and Ford.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty.[/IMG]

Mine, I'm the OP, has nearly 300K miles.

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Regards

Warren

Currently 1965 220Sb, 2002 FORD Crown Vic Police Interceptor

Had 1965 220SEb, 1967 230S, 280SE 4.5, 300SE (W126), 420SEL

ENTER > = (HP RPN)

Not part of the in-crowd since 1952.

Which side of the engine do you start rolling the timing chain in. By the looks of the bleak manual picture...they are rolling it in from the passenger side cam gear. How do the vise grips help. Do you have to move them alot? Which side do the vise grips go. What do you do with the other end of the timing chain after the link is cut out? Which link do you cut out? I have the engine on the marks with the cam gears. The crank pin is pointing almost at the third mark on the balancer to the right of the big O.

yup, passenger side.

As an update to the general procedure, i STRONGLY recommend getting your hands on a valve spring compressor and removing ALL the rockers.. I'm seeing so, so many fail these days. Even if the cams etc all look OK it pays to inspect the rockers before it becomes a problem.

You can thank the modified oils and their lack of anti wear/zinc-phosphate additives for the problem.

It is Rare for me to open a car up and not find rockers that are in need or replacing.

Jonathan

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Blue Ridge Mercedes
Jonathan Hodgman
http://www.blueridgemb.com/
Enthusiast Service, Restoration & Tuning.
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Located in the Atlanta area
Specializing in all pre and post merger AMG's including Hammers and DOHC M117 engines.
Mercedes Repair Atlanta

Yes I agree with you on that. The pass. side cam looks to have some scoring on a couple of lobes. It is not really bad and is basically on the irrellevant slope of that cam. I took the oil tube off to clean out the holes. It looks like this was caused by a lack of oil to the cam oiler tube or a hole got plugged up for a bit and then cleared itself. I have a good set of used cams but I am pretty sure I mixed up all the rocker arms when it got dissassembled, plus that engine had timing chain failure so I am not sure about using those rockers.

I might have to save up to buy lots of parts for that and do that job down the road....I would like to change the head gaskets at the same time since I would have to loosen some head bolts to get the cams out and I don't like loosening head bolts unless the head is coming off. And if the heads are coming off then I may as well take the timing cover off and do the lower guides and then may as well replace all the rubber in the intake tract and then I will be into may as well drop a +145 load of money into it territory. If I go that far then I may as well have the heads re-done too.

I can't afford it right now but it is on my mind that the rockers and such should be done. Good point especially if you are experiencing that type of phenom. Thanks for that info.