Mr.F

Driving home from the in-laws Christmas day. Pull up to a light and hear the dreaded lifter tick. Over the last few weeks the cold start tick would occur almost daily. Put it in the garage, ordered cam holder tool and finally got the chance to get into it tonight. Here's what I found.

The damage appears to be limited to the right side intake cam and lifters. I thought about just replacing all the lifters, and only replacing the affected cam, but noticed the cam part numbers have changed. I did go ahead and order the full set, hopefully that's not an unnecessary expense. From what I've read on forums when MB has preformed this repair under warranty, they've replaced all of the components and not just the affected ones.

Car has about 92k miles, and I'd like to continue driving it for a few more years. It already has weistec head studs, billet pulleys and I just finished replacing all airmatic components just last month. I did go ahead and pick up the camshaft cap bolts and phaser bolts from weistec. here's to another 92k miles

FunkTron

ouch!
what causes this to happen?

fila0220

Its a hot beginning to the year with the typical e63 issues of headbolts and noisy lifters.
From what I recall reading its a design flaw when you start the engine cold and the oil has bled down from being parked. That tick is metal on metal hit with no oil.

Mr.F are you using the same parts or have Mercedes revised them?

Mr.F

As I understand it's an issue of bleed down in the original lifters. the lifters turn to mush effectively causing the cam lobe to crash into the lifter. But i have also heard material incompatibility, and lack of lubrication. what ever the case, it's happened, and the new parts supposedly do not have this problem.

All part numbers have changed, supposedly the new lifters are coated and are a different design that doesn't bleed down to prevent this from reoccurring, but without the parts in my hands to verify it's only an assumption based on what I've read. The part numbers for the cams i ordered are not the same as what's in my car. I have no idea what the change to those might or could have been. Maybe someone who knows more than I do can shed some light.

I'm really on the fence about replacing the cams which don't appear to be damaged, but I've ordered them so it's likely that I will.

Redwood415

Unacceptable by any standard. We have a W211 with triple that mileage (274K miles) with ZERO mechanical failures aside from a failed fuel pump around 150K miles! A huge oversight by Daimler Benz AG.

Rocman8

the other common issue with a rattle on cold start are the camshaft adjuster gears. these have also been updated about 5 times.

hachiroku

problem is...this is AMG's first mass production engine where it was entirely designed in house by AMG. Bolts and all. Prior to this I bet you'd never see any AMG designed and built engine even go past 30,000 miles.

if this was a Mercedes designed engine I'm sure we would not be dealing with such headaches.

Rocman8

What about the 272/273 balance shaft gear and idler sprockets? 272/273 exhaust valve seats? Early 278 exhaust valve seats? 276/274 wrist pins? Just some examples of Mercedes costly defects so I'd put no additional blame on AMG. It happens. Imagine Mercedes without the M156. That engine was a game changer in its day.

Mr.F

Big box o goodies showed up from oediscountparts. New lifters are definitely coated like I've heard, still not sure what's different about the cams. Excited to get my Weistec box and get it back together.