Thanks leathermag and pete for trying to give me some insite. I remember the increased and variable depth required to clean up seats on the older gas mercedes engines. The primary reason I felt the adjusters were perhaps slowley moving was that all exhaust valves should generally have been the same yet the clearances were different from each other. Yet they were all set say ten thousand miles earlier the same. Guess now just different wear patterns were in effect valve to valve. The second item that played into my thoughts was mercedes going to a much tighter interference fit on the adjuster. On the earlier engines I could get the adjuster moving with the crowfoot wrench but on the last ones I did had to remove the rocker and go straight onto the adjuster with socket and bar. Was kind of miserable since was trial and error. If i ever have to do another will set a dial gauge up and calculate the change required to return to spec. Rather than trial and error. the earlier engines were beautiful with no fan clutch. Just pull engine to four positions and get all the valves adjusted properly in about 10 minutes after you got the pan off. Loved those engines. But time does tend to move on.