Sounds eminently plausible. 18 ft. lbs. seemed too light. In the old thread I found here, the OP mentioned the same 18 lb. figure from Haynes. Just found another thread here (2010), he recommended 50 Nm - about 37 ft. lbs. I probably went up to that. Went past the click a bit, just didn't feel seriously tight.

Pretty sure those are 10 mm bolts, my reading has it that 40 lbs is about the max. I know the bolts were in pretty tight when I took it out. I have a phobia about over tightening. Perhaps if I used a medium length 1/2 socket wrench and gave it my full strength, that would be about right. The long torque wrenches are just too long to pull with abandon.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

For less than half price and no tax. You get a rebuilt starter that is very close to a bosh rebuilt quality. Delivered to your door.

The bendix, solenoid, brushes and I expect bearings seem to be of equal to original quality.

You are unlikely to find this with the chain store rebuilts. I never had until I stopped using them. There where and hopefully still are two California rebuilders. Advertising on ebay back some years ago when I recommended them to members. Years earlier in my life there basically where no aftermarket electrical servicing parts other than those of the original manufacturer. So most rebuilts could be trusted. Eventually the junk and substandard replacement parts hit the market. Some where better than others of course but few if any equaled original quality.

There was some discussion somewhere at the time that indicated to me that those two rebuilders where the real deal. I live in Canada so no included shipping unfortuantly. At that time otherwise I really seriously considered stocking some of their common rebuilt starters. We could not buy the good parts to do them cheap enough here in Canada if we had wanted to.

Those starter bolts are sometimes so tight and resistant to release. I wondered if the high current draw and possible the starter using a partial interface with the screws as ground. Created that situation.


In any event I have great interest in always taking care to get the top bolt's 10 mm hex socket both well in and use a very hard type of tool. Sometimes from the force I have had to apply. It is amazing the bolt did not break or round out. This on the 5 cylinder 123s of course.

Bolts "stick" due to metal cold flowing and effectively gluing both surfaced together. The effect is more pronounced with bolts that have a good / thick plating.

The 5 cylinder OM617 also has the starter on the "other" side of the engine from the OM603 up under the exhaust manifold and turbo. The 603 has the starter on the easy-to-access side making a motor swap about a 15 minute ordeal.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

One thing is certain, I would feel pretty stupid if the starter worked loose and damaged the block before I noticed. I could take them back out and put the toughest variety of thread locker on. One wonders what tightening and loosening over much does to threads, male and female .

One of the more sickening feelings is realizing that you have over tightened and stripped out the socket. Getting a new bolt is easy. Seems like that's not what usually goes.

My best thought now is to enter several one month calendar reminders on my phone to check the bolts. I could put it on 40 foot pounds and see how they feel.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I did "tight and then some" on mine and it certainly hasn't fallen out or damaged anything. Use common sense on what feels right and you should be fine. It's easy to get carried away worrying about the small stuff.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

True enough. I had it fairly tight with a half inch driver maybe 15 inches long. Then the torque wrench added about another quarter to a third of a turn.

Thinking about that again, it didn't go that much further with the torque wrench, maybe 1/6 of a turn, enough for one face of the bolt to advance.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Sounds tight enough. Starter bolts backing out have not been a problem with these engines. Perhaps courser threads back out easier.

There also are many applications where I never did use a torque wrench on. Kind of a matter of judgement perhaps. Anyways no problems resulted that would not have occurred anyways. If I had put them to a specific torque setting. Then there are things that people do not consider as being very torque sensitive. Like flared fittings. Where they really are.

The cottage lawn tractor base bolts and nuts are a reoccurring pain for example. I am almost at the point of drilling through and putting a cotter pin in each one.

I often just wing it w/o the torque wrench. The big things give me pause, don't want to F up. I don't want to get too nutty here but my first MB, an '81 300SD went south in part due to a mistake I made with maintenance. It was not a great candidate for restoration but I got it at a good price and liked it so I'm loathe to screw up with this one.

To your earlier post, I too suspect I got a good deal on the starter. I wasn't sure at first. OTOH, it does seem that the eBay feedback/approval rating setup is hard to fake and his was good. I'm puzzled that he can sell them at that price.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

There will come a time when they cannot. They are building a loyal customer base as well I suspect. Their margin has been thin and still is.

It is quite a number of years since I noticed them. They are also still in business and that is also a good indication. .Those Mexican rebuilts are a real crapshoot. Even if it works the repair parts are inferior and the lifespan usually will not be as long. Road issues when well away from home are so expensive usually. Plus you in general will lose a day or even more getting them addressed .They simply are not worth the risk.

Some member made an astute observation not that long ago. The sales receipt for the the chain store Mexican rebuilts are usually printed on thermal paper. It will fade out of readability well before the year or lifetime warranty. Leaving you no proof of purchase. So photostat it on a more durable medium and file it.

I suspect this was planned by some of the chain retailers. Most purchasers will not think of this. Still most will remember trying to read a thermal printed receipt and it being unreadable in a fairly short time. If you can stomach a really paranoid thought.. They may even specify a very short retention of the print material for those receipts.

I almost consider any reciept printed on that small type of thermal paper will not be readable in a few months. Or ask and get some form of written receipt for the purchase from them on request. Just in case they claim your copy is not the original bill of sale.

I found the same thing on both my 300D NA and my later SD when I replaced the starters. The new (reman) ones spun the motors around noticeably faster.

__________________
2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

Keeping things in good shape. Especially the fuel system and reasonable valve adjustment checks. Then hopefully the starters will have lower duty cycles to get the engines running. Both in general are pretty cheap to keep in decent shape if you do it yourself.

In what I call the new economy up here in Canada automotive replacement parts and services are pretty pricy now. So it makes dollar sense to make what you have last.

To me it is strange that so many of the engines in service all those years still have reasonable engine compression.

Us older people tend to remember things. Years ago when I owned a gas fintail. Only about 55 years ago now come to think of it. Mercedes had a program to change out a lot of things at a certain milage.

The bill was pretty hefty as it included all new springs and a slew of other things. Including the major electrical components. I viewed it as preventative maintenance in the extreme.