Got the job done today. All the fuel line o-rings replaced w/viton, injector return jumpers ditto, cleaned up the top of the valve cover and installed all the new pieces of the oil vapor distribution plumbing system -- what a rat's nest compared to older, simpler engines like the 601-2-3 and the 61x family with their single tube breathers.
"Before"
"After"
This is one of the big advantages of DIY -- a hired mechanic would never do the cleanup and we would not want to pay for it if he did (at mechanic rates). With the new breather parts it should now stay clean.
What with having all of the fuel lines off the engine (and therefore full of air) it took a bit of cranking to get the engine started but it eventually caught and ran fine with no leaks -- yet. I'll keep an eye on it for a week before putting the middle belly pan back on.
It did manage to throw a couple of codes -- P0200 "injector circuit malfunction" and P0120 "throttle position sensor." The injector code was probably due to the long cranking time; I've never seen it before. The TPS code has been showing up occasionally and is probably related to the occasional problem I've seen with poor low speed throttle response -- I think the wiper inside is not making good contact (no, it's not the K40 module
). The TPS is just a potentiometer but it's very expensive ($500) so I hope it's something I can fix with a little contact cleaner as if it were a piece of stereo gear. I cleared both codes with my ScanGauge.
Jeremy
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"Buster" in the '95
Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .343,000 miles
Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 148,000 miles
My car
Santa Rosa population 177,300 (2026 projected)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 668,300
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970