Yo!

So I have an 83' 300TD Turbo, it's running okay for 329,000 miles but has developed a hard shake in the engine once it's warmed up and idling. I did a diesel purge, changed the fuel and the fuel filters and cracked the fuel line nuts to force it to miss. When the nuts were cracked, each cylinder noticeably missed.

So after all that, I'm thinking it's the super worn out engine mounts. I'm going to attempt to replace these myself but I also noticed the engine shocks are totally shot. From my understanding, these shocks play more of a roll when killing the engine, not so much during idle

It seems the mounts are quite affordable, but doing the engine shocks is really expensive. So I'm thinking about changing the mounts and if it solves the rough idle issue, then I'm going to go back in and change the engine shocks. I've heard you don't need to jack the engine up to remove the engine shocks.

I know it's twice the work but I'd be really pissed (with this particular car and it's condition) if I spent all that money on the shocks and it didn't help at all. The mounts, those are inexpensive enough that I don't mind if they don't do the trick.

So my questions are as follows...

1) Can I in fact change the engine shocks without lifting the engine?
2) Is it so much work that it makes no sense to change shocks separately from the engine mounts?
3) Do the shocks end up playing that much of a roll in reducing idle vibration?