I AM REPLACING THE WATER PUMP ON MY 81 380SL AND HAVE HIT TWO ROAD BLOCKS.

1. THE BOTTOM BOLT DOES NOT SEEM TO LINEUP WITH THE NOTCHES IN THE HARMONIC TIMING PLATE. IS THERE A TRICK TO GETTING THE BOLT THROUGH THE NOTCH TO REMOVE IT?

2. THE FAR RIGHT BOLT IS DIRECTLY BEHIND THE POST THAT BOLTS DOWN THE DISTRIBUTOR AND SEEMINGLY CANNOT BE REMOVED WITHOUT REMOVING THIS POST. IS THERE A TRICK HERE ALSO?

1. This trick MIGHT have worked on a 450SL, but I haven't gotten it to work on a 380SL or a 560SL. You gotta remove the harmonic balancer, which is a PITA,but not really all that difficult.


2. You gotta remove the distributor AFAIK. Again, not terribly bad.

I strongly recommend that you have at the very least the shop manual on CD for this. The block is aluminum and stripping a threaded hole in an aluminum block is Very Bad. Use a torque wrench after looking up the values.


Keep in mind that this is a six hour by-the-book job. Be glad you are doing it.

__________________
86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

Thank you for the advice. Much appreciated.

Regards

James

1 More Question - is the post that holds the dist a right thread release or a left thread release. I used a post remover and put decent left pressure on it and it didn;t budge. not wanting to strip it I stopped. can you give some direction on to best remove the post?

Thanks

Hold It!

The distributor is held down with a bolt, ordinary RH thread, and once that, and an aluminum spacer and plastic clip are removed, it slides right out. This should be VERY easy. Don't force anything!

__________________
86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

i am actually referring to the threaded post that the bolt that holds the dist in place screws onto. I have removed the dist and aluminum spacer but the final bolt holding the water pump to the block comes directly, squarely into the threaded post itself that the aluminum spacer slides onto and there is not enough clearance between the block and the threaded post to remove the bolt holding the water pump.

I assume this means that I need to remove the threaded post in order to remove that final right side water pump bolt. When I said I used a good amount of force it was on the post not the dist and that post didn't budge.