trey682

Well at least I think so..

I have owned this 85 380se for about two years and it has always been a good car up till now. It was running very well lately, but my wife started it last night and I heard the noise from inside my house. It was a loud clacking noise. I knew it was a big problem and ran outside and told her to shut off the car. This morning I got a chance to look under the hood and I was surprised to see a 6 inch crack on the valve cover. I immediately took the valve cover off to check for damage and it appears that the plastic timing chain guides have broken to pieces. To me, it looks like the belt got loose and jumped a track, causing the valve cover damage and the broken chain guides. Does anyone know how severe of a fix this is? I am now trying to decide if it is worth messing with, or if I should sell it to someone who is willing to put in the time. I have done so much to this car already that I am kinda tired if you know what I mean.

Most of you guys are experts on matters such as this, so all of your inputs will be welcome and respected.

Thanks

mramay

Yep, if the chain and guides aren't changed each 100K miles, the guides seem to like to fail and a piece of the guide is pulled through the cam gear, which drastically changes cam timing, which drastically provides an opportunity for the valves to bounce off the pistons, which drastically empties your wallet.

Probably the easiest thing and cheapest thing to do is get a junk yard engine and swap out the broken one. You can pull the head and see how much damage is in there, but to me, popping in another engine (with fresh chain & guides - a DIY project) is the quickest way to get the Benz back on the road.

Now, if you're nuts like me, putting an LS1/4L60E in there would be LOTS more fun. Nothing like 350-400 HP to wake up a car. :-)

harkgar

Long time Mr Amay,

I have traded in my 560 but am still interested in following up with your LS-1 project. Yours and the supercharged 55 SEL projects are the most exciting here.

I heard that David Letterman drives around in a rear wheel drive Volvo with a Ford 302 cubic inch engine.

harkgar

Can you explain why MB puts on plastic parts with a double chain setup? This is obviously a weak link in an otherwise excellent engine.

schwarzwagen

why in (insert your deity here)'s name would do that? and a rack and pinion is totally pointless. a w126 is proper condition does not lack steering accuracy at all.

allnpt0

I would say because it sounds like a cool idea. If he has the time and resources, why not. Thats why we have project cars. To make them our own.

schwarzwagen

why not? because a w126 is not a jaguar. there is no reason why anyone would remove either the excellent m116/117 or m103 for a small block chevy.

Untertürkheim

Get a nice 560 engine, should fit perfectly...

trey682

How about replacing the chain guides and timing chain? Isn't that all that needs to be done here? The motor was running pristinely prior to this happening. Has anyone ever swapped out the chain guides? How tough of a job is it? The book procedure looks pretty simple, but the pins that lock in the plastic guides have to be popped out with a special impact weight that is fitted with a 6mm bolt. That is odd to me. It seems like they would just have used an allen bolt to secure those in place.

rheftmann

Really, what a bunch of crazy ideas. Just fix what's broken. This is a known, very well known, weakness of this particular engine, with plenty of experience accumulated in fixing it. If you didn't lose any valves (much less pistons), you're lucky. My 380SE sucked a chain and a few valves many years ago, was simply repaired, and I have put another few hundred thousand miles on the car. Do what David Letterman does if you're David Letterman.
The 380SE is a sensible car: safe, easy to drive, and very fault tolerant. My car is wearing out, but so am I, and suspect with reasonable maintenance and when needed, original parts replacement and repair, it will go forever. (I wish I could say the same for me.) Get another car if you want power and uniqueness.

trey682

I am looking into doing the repairs myself. The main obsticle I have now is the guide rail pins. They require a tool referred to as an "impact puller" in the manual. I tried using a 6mm bolt, vice grips, and a hammer instead but the pin will not budge. I don't really want to make my situation any worse. Does anyone know a good substitution for removing the guide rail pins. The tool by itself costs $110.00!

harkgar

One hundred bucks is cheap man.

For MB that is one hour labor.

RogerJones

And in the UK, MB dealers are now charging USD250 per hour.

harkgar

Do the British MB mechanics wear white gloves and coats and have PhDs?

Two hundred bucks is a lot of bread.

trey682

So far, most of the advise I have gotten here has been "hey spend big bucks ...don't worry about it." I guess I am the only one on this site that lives on a budget. Anyways, I found someone on another site that had the exact same problem and he came up with a brilliant way to get around paying 110.00 for a part that would only be used once. I attached a pic of it. It is a little home made pin puller. Pretty cool. This guy did a great job of documenting his entire process. You can see the thread here...http://www.mercedesshop.com/shopforu...uides+Replaced I will go tomorrow and get the chain, tensioner, and guides. I will probably start the work next weekend. In the mean time, I have been thinking of really sprucing up the engine visually. Today I polished the valve covers to a brilliant sheen. When it is all put back together, I will post some pics.

BENZITCH

Good luck in your chain job. Take your time, follow the book, and you will do good. If you would can you post the parts list and the prices?
Thanks
Bruce
BENZITCH

AR.Shah

I feel sorry for you, same thing happend to my E270 CDI a few years ago, a worn/broken pressure pump caused that. Engine had to be replaced and I had to pay a furtune.. See pic below. Anyway good luck with yours and keep us posted

E4///Turbo

if the valves did not bend you can roll in a new chain fairly easily,if the valves are bent,it is not the easiest engine to pull the head and do the work yourself,but dropping in a good low mileage 560 engine would be cheaper than having the heads done with new chain and guides.....the value of the car is gone if is does not run under it's own power....

jhodg5kc

If you skipped teeth valves are bent..

As for dropping a 560 in that's a Very involved process...even w/o going to CIS E. Easiest is dropping in a Euro 500 engine.


Jonathan

trey682

A friend of a friend came over with a compression checker. The left side all tested at 120 to 140 and the right side all tested at 150, so it looks like the valves are not bent. I was worried about the same thing. If the valves were bent, I was going to have to almost give the car away because of the fact that I live in Hawaii. There is not a single salvage yard on the island that carries MBs any older than 1995. Living in paradise has its disadvantages! Here is a link to a guy on ebay that has the entire chain kit (minus guides) at a good price..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...9297906&rd=1,1

I will be starting this weekend...

Thanks guys!

jhodg5kc

I wouldn't use that kit..aftermarket tensioner.. I gave up on those a couple of years ago after having too many cars come out w/ a slapping chain on start up.

Thus, if you want to do the job Right I would go w/ the Genuine tensioner, genuine guides and genuine oil line clips (something else he left out of his kit..).


Jonathan

trey682

I am learning alot as I go but I have hit a major road block. Everything is put back together now. It looks very nice. I tried to see if the car would fire before I even started looking at timing. It did start, sputter, putter, and die. I then began to go through the process of timing. Here is what I learned from a call to my Dad..

Cylinder1 valves closed + Harmonic balacer at TDC + Rotor pointing to #1 = Top Dead Center. Sound good to you guys?

Anyways, the car turns over and over now with no sighns of wanting to fire at all. I looked at spark, since I went ahead and changed plugs/wires. I was getting spark on all 8. I looked at loose vaccuum hoses. I found a couple and tried plugging them.....still no help. The car will not try to fire over and I do not know why. I included some pics of my engine for you guys to look at and tell me what I should do next.

If the firing order is 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2 and 1-4 is on right and 5-8 is on left, then I am pretty sure I have the firing order correct.

Any thoughts as to why the car will not fire over at all?

trey682

I realized what my problem was. The top 0 mark I was using as the TDC reference on the harmonic balancer was 180deg off from TDC. So it was all 180 degrees off the whole time. Anyways, I corrected that and the car will start, then putter for a minute, then die. I can adjust the distributor little bits at a time, but all it does is change how long the engine will putter before keeling over. I am fairly certain that I have everything timing related in order. I have the firing order correct, the notches that indicate TDC on the camshafts are lined up perfectly, the balancer is at TDC, and the rotor points right at number 1 mark. What am I doing wrong. It must be something so simple that I am missing...Any advice please!!!

I need to get this car running before I PCS to another base.

Thanks!

trey682

Yep....it has three bent valves.. I don't have the time or energy to fix it now. I am leaving the Island (Oahu).

It has a brand new campaign paint job, new rims, new window tint, etc. All the buttons and whistles work. The car has totally new brakes (and master cylinder), Bosch Platinum plugs, new plug wires, distributor cap/rotor, new fuel pump, new fuel filter, new gator grip belts, and a fresh oil change.

I wish I could keep it, but circumstances are going to cause me to take a giant loss......$1500 takes it. I have invested about $7K already!

wbain

Wow, you used my pic. I'm honored. Glad you liked the documentation.