603 stop lever position
 

can somone confirm something for me? I've got the lines of an SDL at the moment doing delivery valve seals and for 5 & 6 I had to hold the stop lever out of the way to get to them, but it always returned to the horizontal position. I came back to it last night to find the lever pointed straight up now and I cannot manually push it back to the horizontal position, it just springs back up -

did I miss something here? as far as I know, I didn't notice it sticking straight up when I was taking it apart, anybody think I did something wrong?

If there is residual vacuum in the shut-off actuator, the lever will tend to stay down. Once the vacuum has bled off, so to speak, the internal spring will make the lever tend to stay up. If you turn the key to run or pull the vacuum line from the shut-off actuator the lever should spring to vertical.

Sixto
93 300SD

A good vacuum shut-off valve will hold the shut-off lever down indefinitely using residual vacuum. You may want to test your shut off valve to see how well it can hold a vacuum, it may be in the process of dying. There is a published specification in the OM603 manual for how much vacuum should be lost over a specified period of time.

It's much easier to change it while the high pressure lines and intake manifold are off for the delivery valve seal change. In reviewing my maintenace records I see that my shut-off valve went bad approximately 10K miles AFTER I changed the delivery seals!!

YMMV.

thanks guys, I haven't had a chance to go back out and finish it yet- should get time today, but that makes perfect sense now, I was planning on pumping it down with my vac pump and seeing if it held. :) thanks!

just to finish this thread up- with no vacuum on the shutoff valve, the lever returns to a vertical position! no worries ;)