Well fellas. Now it's my turn to tell ya' about my latest problems.
My '84 500SEL was experiencing a problem with hard restarts. I took the car to my local independent and he replaced a check valve that he said was losing pressure and causing it to have trouble restarting. I also noticed that my fuel pump had been buzzing for the last year and I remember you guys saying that it was a sign that the pump was gonna go. So I had it replaced as well.
I got the car back on a Friday and drove it thru the weekend. It ran fine and restarted fine. On the following Tuesday I noticed that it was starting to have trouble restarting again. I called up my mechanic and he told me to bring it in and he will look at it as soon as he could get to it. After talking to him, I stopped at a restaurant to get a bite to eat and when I went to restart the car, it wouldn't start at all. It would crank but it wouldn't start.
To make a long story a little shorter (I know it's long already), my mechanic looked at it and said that a timing chain rail broke and the pieces went all over. Also all of the valves in the right bank are bent. He quoted me close to $4grand to fix it.
Now you can see why I'm cryin' in my beer.
Does this sound like something that I could do with a knowledgable friend for substantially less?