M119 lifter replacement
 

I have an early 400E with the M119 that has the aluminium oil tubes. The lifters (or one) clack on start up pretty badly. Only for a few seconds till the pressure builds. It has been going on for sometime and NEEDS to be dealt with.
Can anyone direct me to a "How To..." for replacing the valve lifter(s) on this engine.
Thanks
PS...Alldatadiy is not very helpful.:mad:

I'd think it would be normal for a lifter to clack until it has oil pressure.:rolleyes: Seriously, 119 lifter failure is a VERY RARE occurance.

The 119 engine has an anti-drainback valve in the oil filter housing that can get cocked and allow the oil to drain out of the block overnight. That definately will cause a clack on startup, which is actually the timing chain slapping around due to the tensioner not having oil pressure on startup. :cool:

OK....thanks for that. I wasn't really looking forward to replacingthe lifter(s). So, does the anti-drain check valve fail every now and then ? Is it replaceable? Thanks

Yes the valve is replaceable. It's not a lot of fun pulling the oil filter housing off of the engine but is fairly straight forward. I've replaced a lot more drainback check valves than lifters in 119 engines.

You may be interested in this post. http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/tech-help/20032-500e-still-racka-rackas-cold-start-up-3.html?highlight=oil+pressure+remove+filter+housing+check+valve

The bottom of page 3 mentions an updated return check valve and shows the diagram and affected engines.

OK...replaced the check valve in the filter housing. The old one was worn and I had great hopes. But, when I started it the racka-racka was still there....but not for as long. BUT...the oil pressure has been affected now!! I have 2.5 as the normal. Before it would at least peg to 3.0 bar when driving. Idles at or below 1.0.
PLUS, it now takes quiet abit longer on a cold start to get the oil pressure up at all and still with the racka-racka until it does. Does this sound like an oil pump gone bad...or going bad ?
Engine is smooth and quiet once the oil pressure gets up.

The new check valve never seems to fix anything. With a stethoscope you might be able to tell which lifters are causing the problem, and confirm that it's not the timing chain. There's a test at the link below, although not very scientific. It gets a little expensive to replace all 32.

http://mb.auto.pl/wis/w124/CD01/Engine/119/05-2110.pdf

With the lowered oil pressure I'm hoping it is the oil pump or the check valve there in. This engine has the aluminium oil tubes so they aren't the problem.
How could changing the check valve in the oil filter housing affect the engine oil pressure.....for the worse??
Do you have an oiling diagram for this engine ? I can't find one at Mitchel or Alldata or on my MB CD.

The oil pressure shouldn't be affected to the degree you have. Are you sure all was reassembled properly?

yeah....it's pretty much a no brainer. Can only go in one way...

Here's a pretty good article on the subject:

http://www.k6jrf.com/MB_lifter.html

But that's an article about plastic oil tubes, which this car doesn't have. It doesn't seem like a new check valve should affect oil pressure, if the right part and properly installed.