Okay guys I think I may be screwed here... a couple weeks ago when removing heads from my '88 560SEL I ran into an issue. On the driver's side, inboard bolt on the rear cam tower, the bolt stripped (hex head stripped, not the threads). It took a great deal of work and a good bolt extractor to pull this bolt without any apparant damage to the heads or the cam tower. The bolt is now junk (obviously). When ordering some other top-end parts for my car I also picked up a couple spare head bolts of each of the 3 sizes. Here's my problem. This bolt is not a head bolt, and even though it has the same diameter and thread pitch, it is a different lenght.

Does anyone know were I can get a replacement for this bolt. I know its not in the parts section and I couldn't find it in another source like Performance. Is this a bolt I may have to break down and to go the proctologist-err-dealership in order to get?

Thanks in advance. I've been taking pictures of the project as it goes along and I hope to post them somewhere when done so people can laugh at my stupidity !!!


Scott