Guru,
I did notice that the u joint was a bit notchy. I figured if I keep the car long enough I will replace it. Next summer I might upgrade to a 350sdl or a 560sel if I can find one in good shape.
I was considering switching to midgrade, premium does get expensive and I've messed with other octane ratings and seen no difference. If I was doing highway travel or driving through the mountains I'd still run premium.
Today I changed my spark plugs, the previous owner had the wrong ones installed, NGK V-power TR5 which are resistor plugs. I installed Denso T20EP-U, gapped to 32 thousands. The old plugs looked decent, they were very worn the gap had increased to 51 thousands.
Also changed all the intake hoses on the engine. They had gotten very hard and brittle, when i cleaned the iacv one of them split so i figured it was time. I used meyle hoses. All four, including the 2 for the IACV. The one that had the cold start injector mounted into it was a bear to get off and back on, it also broke apart in my hand. I ended up leaving the little hose clamp off of that one. Had to jam my hand between the first and second intake runner to help guide it, slightly painful.
