well, i gave up for the night. i've got a farmer friend with a better garage and tools, i'll head over there tomorrow to finish this job up.

something else funny occurred though:

i put the injector lines back on, i put the return lines back on, i re-attached the vacuum lines i had to disconnect, and then went to start it up. it wouldn't turn over, obviously because of the air in the lines, so i gave it a good 40 or 50 pumps on the primer. started up but ran roughly and noisily. i floored it and the biggest, blackest cloud of smoke my car has ever emitted came gushing out the exhaust. just thick soot all over my driveway and through the air. i did it a couple more times and got even more. i took it for a quick spin, brought it up to temp and came back. parked it, floored it, and got a lot of smoke, not as much but still a lot. is this normal behavior for the lines being disconnected? did i hand pump too much fuel into the system or something? did i do something yanking on the injectors?

either way, thanks for the advice. i'll get cranking on them tomorrow. still though, does anyone know if it's a good idea or not to spray pb blaster or another lubricant in there to help out?

EDIT: the local diesel shop/tractor trailer shop to me, when i asked them about pop testing new injectors, that is was b.s. and that any company worth anything does all that before hand. they claimed to be in business for X amount of years and never did any pop testing before installing new injectors. food for thought?

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1985 300D - 1984 Euro 280E AMG Clone (SOLD) - 1978 280CE (SOLD) - 1983 300D (SOLD) - 1981 300D (SOLD)