I can see the whole line route on my '79 and '85 300's from above, and I can't visualize what makes jacking the motor up necessary. Will the hard pipe sections just not fit around the motor mounts? Is the compressor in just the wrong place, the power steering lines? I'm going to do the '79 first, and try the 'I can see it so I can remove it without any other dis-assembly' method first. The oil cooler removal method interest me, too, as I just did that when I put a new radiator in the '85. I'll post the results, with pictures even (maybe), just to really flog a dead horse, I mean add to the data base. These assumptions are due to a less than exhaustive search and study of this subject on this and other sites, but I have spent a few hours perusing just this subject...

Ok, final edit. I forgot about the lines being connected to the block. Is it these that cause some of the problem, too?

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1985 300D-189k The 'UD', Ivory and Pinkamino
1979 300D-211k Dark Gray, Parchment
A 1980 Harley-~166k and
A 1994 Ford diesel pickup-349k and
A 1990 gasser Volvo wagon-145k