I purchased this 86' 560SEL a few months ago and love the car. It has 83,000 miles and (for the most part) runs very nicely. I do have some transmission flare going from P-D or P-R. Sometimes it won't go into gear at all, so I have to put the car back into Park, and then it will grab on when I put it in Drive the second time. It's not a major annoyance at the moment and is an issue that I plan on attending to soon. The car also has trouble with warm starts and usually needs to be given a bit of gas to start when it's warm (another issue I'll be tackling soon). There appears to be a vacuum leak somewhere, as the Economy gauge is about 2 mm to the right of where it should be at idle. I'll be running a fog machine through the car to see if I can find where the leak is coming from. If anybody has any insight or suggestions on how to go about dealing with these problems, I'd greatly appreciate it.

But, that's not what this post is mainly about. When I bought the car, I noticed a slight bit of oil underneath the passenger valve cover. I'm currently in the process of replacing the Valve Cover Gasket. I just took the valve cover off, and the gasket definitely seems to be the culprit as it didn't seem fully attached on one side (where oil was leaking from) as I pulled the cover off. I'll be installing the new gasket tomorrow once I pick up some new washers for the valve cover bolts, as I was initially unaware that they'd need to be replaced.

Is there anything else that I should be replacing while the cover is off?
Should the gasket be lubricated before putting it on? If so, what should it be lubricated with?

I'm fairly new to working on cars, and this is my first Mercedes. I'm not very knowledgeable yet when it comes to what to be watching out for when looking at an engine. I've attached a few photos and would appreciate any insight as to whether or not everything looks good or if there's anything to be concerned about. I just realized that I left the old gasket lying there in the photos, my apologies. Here they are:










Thanks,
Joe.

There's a rubber bushing on the shift rod. Once it deteriorates and ultimately disintegrates, gear selection is iffy.

My 190E 2.6 five-speed has three of them - same part as the one used on autos- that I replaced a few years ago. The one-two rod bushing at the trans lever was completely gone, which made first gear difficult to select, and the others were deteriorated and about ready to to disintegrate despite only 82K miles. Time and heat take a toll.

Pelican has them for a couple of bucks each.

Duke