I changed the valve cover gaskets on my 82 380sl without a problem. When I put everything back together and I turned the engine on there was a kick to the drivers side ever so often. The movement was similar to revving the engine hard but it was moving the car a bit. There was no grinding or abnormal noise coming from it. Then i heard a pop and smoke was coming up from the front of the engine. I rechecked every thing I did and tried it again and it lasted about 2 seconds before another pop and the motor shut off. This time there was a slight hiss from the motor after the pop. How bad did I break the car? I simply replaced the gaskets and did not touch anything else. Any help would be greatly appreciate.

timing chain jumped or broke. always takes the lh cover with it. maybe a rail broke and got in the chain path. if it jumped more than 4 teeth, you have bent valves on that head. just a bad coincidence, nothing to do with the job, unless you left a tool behind. good luck, chuck.

...........or maybe the idle air hose wasn't re-installed correctly?

i've seen enough of your posts to know you see WAAAY more cars than i do. last time i did a chain it was a 560sl about 7 yrs ago, done about 30 total. i don't remember how the idle hose gets in the way during a valve cover r and r. what did i miss? thanks, chuck.

Removing the idle air hose makes it a little easier to get the valve covers on/off. I was thinking maybe a hose may have split and caused a vacuum leak..........

That sounds bad, please keep us posted and good luck I hope it is not serious

bad things happen to nice cars all the time.

Update your profile with your location. You might get lucky and have one of us close enough to help you look it over.

-CTH

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