Greetings All,

I hope we aren't going to start a flame war over oil on my post.
Michael, you were right about the bolt size, but I double checked at NAPA before buying the helicoil kit. I thought I might screw the job up because of the close tolerance at the rear firewall and having to use a wrench to tap the hole once I drilled it out, but this job actually went smoother than any others I've done on either Benz. I think more time was spent prepping the area for metal shavings than anything else. Luckily I have the extremely small attachments to a shop vac that even allowed me to suck out each drilled and tapped hole as I went. That was a God send and well worth the $5.00 my wife paid for it the other year. I was extremely skeptical about replacing the lifters after seeing the rear rocker detached from the block, so I didn't purchase or install any new ones, just to see if the noise was isolated to the problem at hand once I got it back together.
Well needless to say there isn't any ticking, clicking or tapping after the job was done and the engine was buttoned up. The wife thinks she has a new engine now, or so she says. I guess I'm waiting to see if any of the others will break loose in the near future. I figured if they torqued down to spec I wasn't about to remove them and drill them out until they actually start to fail. I would say my indicator to this problem is ticking that doesn't go away but slowly gets louder. So my advice to anyone out there with more than a slight ticking sound coming from their valve train, is to pull the cover and investigate the source before it's too late, and to check the torque on the rocker arms once you have the cover off if all seems fine to the eye. Spinning bolts that won't torque down will end up vibrating out or pull out all together if they are at either end of your cam.

Once again, a special Thanks to Michael for chiming in and helping me get this tank back on the pavement.


Charles

__________________
"Tell me and I will listen, Teach me and I will learn, Show me and I will accomplish, Involve me and I will succeed."
'84 300SD 256,000 Gold on Brown (Mileage Award)
'86 300E 246,000 Blue on Tan