Fuel filter drain, and other drains on time & money

[katja]

I bought my 240D over 5 years ago, knowing very little about how to work on cars, but had this lofty goal of having Katja fully restored in 5 years.

Those who know me, know that I am better at procrastinating than anything else, and while I have succeeded in that, my 240D is far from "restored." You know....lack of time or money, or time and money.

And, I have finally come to terms with a few realities:

- I much prefer to wash, wax and detail my Mercedes than to wrench on it.
- My friends do not want to help me work on my car and don't have the time to do so anyway
- I love my Mercedes too much to get rid of it, but needs some upcoming major repairs, soooo....that leaves me with two choices: do the work myself (slow & painful and much higher probability of making potentially costly mistakes) or have my indy do it (expensive).

My strategy now is to continue to do the little jobs myself, by myself, and save up for my indy to do the big stuff that requires two people and tools & knowledge that I don't have.


And already, I'm stuck right now on the silly fuel filter drain. Sorry if this sounds totally clueless.

There are no symptoms that the fuel filter actually needs to be changed (I've already done the prefilter and even that wasn't very dirty), but I think this is a regular maintenance item and I believe there's probably some accumulated water that needs to be removed. Most other diesels I've looked at with had a water trap/separator as part of the filter assembly, but this appears to have some kind of grommet and plug at the bottom of the metal can for draining the fuel, and there's also a bolt on the side. I can't get either of those bolts to budge even a little. Any tips? (and how to keep from spilling fuel everywhere).

OK, so once I get this solved, while I play around at my own leisure at restoring the seats and various failed accessories, I have some important engine-related health concerns to address:

-Nailing on at least one injector, usually at light throttle....I'm past the point where diesel purge will help...they need to be rebuilt
-Constant bluish smoke at idle; not bad, but noticeable
-After climbing a long hill, engine idles high for a while
-Quite a lot of vapor coming out the breather & oil cap
-Rough idle & lots of smoke after a cold start (starts quickly though, even at sub-freezing temperatures).

Mileage is around 229K but speedometer was disconnected when I bought it, so could be over 300K in reality. Not much in the way of maintenance records before I bought it, either.

My thought is:

1) Have injectors rebuilt, or buy some rebuilt ones. Should I tackle the removal/replacement myself, considering I'm not an experienced wrenchhead?
2) Have the timing chain & associated parts replaced, & pump re-timed. Or should I just have the pump timing done & leave the chain alone?
3) Have injection pump diaphragm & vacuum pump diaphragm replaced, I suspect one of these might be the cause of the high idle after heavy load.
4) Accept the massive blowby because it's not economical to rebuild my engine

I know some of these jobs are going to be expensive, so I plan to stagger these out (procrastinate) over the next two years, but am wondering if I could cause imminent and catastrophic damage by ignoring any of the above for a while (by recent reports on this forum of OM61x engines grenading at 70mph on the highway suddenly, makes me worry). Any suggestions on how to prioritize my list or if I am off-base in my thinking, would be appreciated.