I believe you have an 83 300sd, correct me if wrong. My 84 300sd is a bear to get the valve cover off. Next time I will remove the air cleaner. To put it back on, I finally just lined it up and hit the top with my fist, and down it went. Bolts sticking up must line up verticle, otherwise they catch on the sides.
Yes I take off the 4 bolts on top, disconnect what I have to get the top off. And I have to disconnect the metal rod coming out of the firewall.
I also had the spinning valve issue, and had to use a screwdriver to wedge the bottom to get the bottom nut to loosen. It was only one valve.
To turn the engine by the power steering belt, I use either vice grips (? Those locking pliers or whatever they are called) or a pipe wrench. Both have worked for me. Once it starts to turn, it gets easier.
I have a set of the valve wrenches, but I need to get the special wrench to hold the bottom part of the valve from spinning.
Last but not least, after the last valve adjustment, I had oil dripping after driving. The back corner of the gasket was not seated over the metal, but was bent slightly inside the cover bottom.
Just to let you know, some of us have been there done that.
Chuck
--- In diesel_mercedes@yahoogroups.com, "CaitlinDean" <tinymachine@...> wrote:
>
> Let's just start by saying "you win some, you lose some" ;)
>
> Despite excellent help here and around the interwebz, I hit 3 "rough spots" and was not able to complete the job, and threw in the shop rag. Despite a lot of frustration, I still learned a lot during my attempt, and will be ready by the next time it needs doing ;)
>
> My first "trouble"...getting the valve cover off:
> Couldn't *quite* figure out how to minimize throttle linkage dis-assembly (or maybe that WAS minimal) so after taking apart 4 links, we unbolted the entire throttle linkage assembly from the top of the valve cover and set it aside on the top of the air filter assembly. Easy enough. However, we had the hardest time getting the cover to lift up past some of the injector hard lines (one in particular @ cyl 3). The benefit of all that wrestling is that I finally noticed something pretty obvious...that the spacers between the first 3 hard lines were all missing. The bottom of the air filter assembly seemed awfully close (and a little banged up near) to to valve cover and between that and the hard lines it was a lot of wiggling, pulling, angling and deep breathing to get the cover off...but finally...done.
>
> My 2nd "trouble"...turning the engine
> I tried via the P/S nut and I think we moved the cam lobes by 15deg or less. I had just had all the belts replaced, and opted to explore other methods before adjusting the belt tightness. The "bump it with the key" method, I just want to clear up, requires undoing the glow timer relay (this is via mercedessource and resembles a method mentioned in the manual), but I didn't get far enough to even really try that either ;)
>
> My 3rd "trouble" ... spinning springs:
> I decided to just try one of the valves as the lobe was already pointing up. The spring and collar nut kept spinning. Tried jamming a screwdriver to hold it in place (another M.S. tip) but couldn't really get that to work (I didn't have a big enough tool to do it right). I know there is some OEM tool that holds these guys in place, but I didn't have it :) My friend helping me, *really* wanted to help, and got the nuts unlocked at some point...and then we fiddled with the adjustment, definitely not finding the right "spot" (all the while dealing with intermittent spinning). And then I tried to get it locked up again, and am pretty sure that was unsuccessful.
>
> We'd been at it a couple hours by then, sun started setting (we were outside at his place), was actually getting cold, and I made the decision to put it all back together and kindly ask my mechanic to bail me out of my jam. Putting the valve cover back ON was worse than getting it OFF (new gasket kept popping), but the throttle stuff was easier than I thought...just like a puzzle.
>
> So...I gave it a shot...and I didn't want to call it a total "failure". I have some money from christmas set aside specifically for the car, and I'm glad I have that. I'm now on the lookout for PaP hard lines or at least the spacers. I don't mind picking up the "special tool" that prevents the spinning in place. And I'm hoping to find a pal with a garage ;)
>
> Anyway it was really cool to have the valve cover off and to see inside that part of the engine.
>
> Maybe next year?
> Caitlin
> Santa Fe
>
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