tried to remove the intake crossover pipe yesterday to inspect the valve oil lines, injector lines, and such and after taking off the driver side hex bolt and the two passenger side bracket bolts tried unsuccessfully to remove. This should be easy, what am I missing? Should I take the passenger side bracket off to get it out of the way? Thanks in advance for any advice.

On the passenger side, the crossover pipe connects to a short piece of intake pipe that holds the EGR valve. That section of pipe is mounted to the engine block with a black metal bracket and four bolts. You need to fully loosen, if not remove, those four bolts, then carefully pry apart the pipes. Remember, they're aluminum.

Disassembly and reassembly of the crossover pipe is the worst part of working on this car. You've just got to muscle it...carefully.

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2009 E320 Bluetec 117,000
1995 E300D 306,000 Sold
1996 Ford Taurus LX 130,000 Sold
1985 300TD Still 225,000 Sold
2016 Ford Fusion 24,900

A little lubricant on the o-rings helps the parts go back together, just don't use anything that will attack the o-ring material. I use high-vacuum grease because that's what I've got but there are others.

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

Just had my '97 E300 crossover pipe off yesterday, to finally replace those fuel line o-rings. The black bracket had to come off. I removed the 2 10mm hex bolts from the cross over pipe, then removed the top two bracket-to-engine bolts, leaving the bottom one (no. 5) in but loose. Then start wiggling the crossover, she will eventually come out, egr side first. Putting it back was a pain though. IP side first, I ended up lubing the big o-rings with vaseline, and used a 1lb rubber mallet 'convincer' to finish the installation, very gently convincing the connections to mate. Don't forget to get all that carbon crud out of the crossover pipe by whatever means you can think of.

Long story short, my delivery valves are leaking badly (drop every few seconds), just ordered the socket and washers/o-rings. Weekend IM coming off. Glowplugs while I'm there. 92K mi.