The car has not started since 2008 and it is sitting on an engine stand. I didn’t intend to rebuild it. I removed the trans and sent it off to Sun Valley Mercedes. Since trans is out and it has a rear seal leak, I removed the rear seal. After removing I find the seal spun and gouged the rear cover. So I have a new cover which means now the pan gasket needed replacement. Because of this I decided to pull the engine (tranny already out). After removing the pan I then find lower slide rail pieces in the oil pump’s pick up tube. So now I have to remove the front timing cover to replace those broken guides. When I remove that I can only imagine what I find next.

As you can see it all started with a simple rear seal replacement and then spun out of control. I call it my personal rabbit hole. Oh yah, after removing the engine I find broken & burned wires in the harness so I’m doing that too.

Doesn’t this happen to everyone owning one of these cars? I’ve just accepted I will be tearing this engine apart. Maybe I’ll need to grind the cams & crankshaft and install new main bearings and spend a million dollars on this $5,000 car.