Top End Rebuild - Day 9

Finally got that last bolt off. Used a 1/2" drive, with a 12" extension, with an adapter to 3/8", a 6" extension and then finally the 13mm socket on the end. The conversion to 3/8" was to give the joint a little play to wrap around the collector. It didn't go on perfectly flat onto the bolt head, but I managed to get it off. Very lucky, because if it was ever so slightly seized, I would have stripped the head off the bolt.

Found a 27mm socket in the basement from a very old tool box my father bought many lifetimes ago. Everyone kept saying that you need a 2ft breaker bar, but I turned the engine with ease using just a 1/2" drive wrench.

The engine was 5deg off when the marks on the cam lined up. I think that is a given. Thus the chain is perfect, but I will be changing it anyway to save any heartache in the near future. Not sure if I'm going to roll in another chain, or if I'm going to take the timing cover off. Apparently, if you take the timing cover off, you cannot put it back on, without damaging the sump gasket. Anyways, that's something to figure out later.

I noticed that the cam lobes have started rusting. Must have had the cam covers off for only a week. Not sure if this is serious or not. I sprayed the valve train with WD40 (EDIT: Apparently WD40 is a big NO NO!) to stop it from rusting further. Some advice on this would be appreciated.

Waiting for the dog-leg hex socket to remove the heads. I think I'm about 40% through with the rebuild. Haven't removed the P/S pump yet. Going to take the passenger's side head off first.

































I was so pleased with myself after getting the exhaust off that I even cleared the table and swept the garage.

Top End Rebuild - Day 8

Spent about 2 hours on the car today. The weather has been really crappy, so progress is slow. In the cold, on your back, a 5min job takes 20mins.

Managed to get one more bolt off the exhaust downpipe flange. One more bolt to go! Must sound incredibly pathetic, if it took 2 hours to take 1 bolt off, but if you've never done it before, figuring out the "trick" takes a long time.





I think I need some sort of crow-foot wrench for the left bolt. You can barely see it, but its in this picture.

Top End Rebuild - Day 7

I spent about 6 hours on the car today. Can't believe how quickly time goes by. Removed the alternator, radiator and all 4 nuts + 4 bolts from the driver's side exhaust manifold. Also removed that annoying EGR clamp from behind the cylinder head.

I thought the driver's side exhaust manifold would come off now, but its still holding onto the cross-pipe. Whats the order in which all these things need to be removed? So annoying. I'm thinking of converting to Tri-Ys now. I'd be mad to put these stupid logs back on the car.

AMG Performance Exhaust




















American 560SEL Exhaust

Vacuum Hoses

Found a list online of vacuum hose part numbers. Apparently most of them are no longer available. But good reference. I added the EPC descriptions.

TECALAN (GmbH) Thermoplastic Pipes

000-158-14-35 - Transparent (sort of white)
-- Intake manifold (850mm)
000-158-35-35 - Red?
000-158-88-35 - Transparent with brown stripe
-- Throttle valve to thermo-valve (370mm)
-- Thermo-valve to exhaust gas recirculation valve (550mm)
000-158-89-35 - Transparent with red stripe
000-158-90-35 - Transparent with yellow stripe
-- Throttle housing to control valve (180mm)
000-158-91-35 - Transparent with blue stripe
-- Intake manifold to electric change-over valve (1130mm)
000-158-92-35 - Transparent with grey stripe
000-158-93-35 - Transparent with black stripe
-- Throttle housing to thermo-valve (350mm)
000-158-94-35 - Transparent with green stripe
000-158-96-35 - Transparent with violet & brown stripe
-- EGR valve to thermo-valve (150mm)
-- EGR valve to thermo-valve (660mm) (from 1988)
000-158-97-35 - Transparent with violet & red stripe
000-158-98-35 - Transparent with violet & yellow stripe
000-158-99-35 - Transparent with violet & blue stripe
-- Shut-off valve to electric change-over valve (1000mm)
000-997-39-52 - Brown
001-997-81-52 - Black
116-276-06-30 - Black with white lettering
123-276-16-30 - Black with red stripe

The little black rubber elbows are #117 078 05 81

Top End Rebuild - Day 6

Spent a little over 2 hours on the car today. Managed to remove all 2 nuts + 2 bolts from the passenger side exhaust manifold. What an ordeal! My left hand from the finger tips to the wrist is sore. Thank God none of the fittings were seized otherwise it would have been impossible. I should hopefully have the exhausts off the car by the end of the week. What a pain.

Top End Rebuild - Day 5

Hardly worth chalking it up as an actual "Day" since I spent less than an hour on the car today. Thought of taking off the radiator for better access to the accessories but saw the oil cooler lines and said naah. Didn't feel like dealing with that mess today.

Put the front of the car on axle stands so I could creep under it and look at the exhaust. Can't figure out how to remove the damn thing. Luckily none of the bolts I did manage to remove were seized. Nevertheless, I can't even access the lower nuts. The workshop manual says you need to "lift" the engine - I say you can piss off. I'm not lifting the engine. I don't have the means to do that even if I wanted to.

Can the heads be removed with the exhaust manifold still attached? The driver's side looks even worse for clearance. How the hell do you remove the exhaust manifold.

Top End Rebuild - Day 4

Finally the intake manifold comes off! Removing the small hose going to the water pump seems to have helped. I used a broken wooden spade handle and pried the intake manifold loose. On an original setup, you have to remove the top half of the manifold first. This is because of the way the EGR pipe is clamped down.

The EGR pipe is clamped in 3 places. Once on the driver's side exhaust shield, once behind the cylinder head and one more time on the plenum. You cannot remove the clamp behind the cylinder head without removing the head from the car. Thus you have to separate the intake manifold into two pieces and remove the clamp on the plenum and wiggle the plenum out - leaving the EGR pipe clamped to the head. If it wasn't for this one clamp, you could remove the intake manifold with the plenum as one assembly all together. When it comes down to reassembly I think I'm going to omit the clamp behind the cylinder head. EDIT: You can remove the clamp. Its just very difficult.









The intake manifold gasket was pretty much shot. It was brittle and torn. I even found engine oil in the plenum so that gasket was really done. The coolant passages? along the cylinder head had carbon deposits baked in. Check out the pictures.

No one would ever believe that these timing chain guide rails were originally white in colour. Mine were reddish brown. Long past their life span. The chain didn't look too bad, but it'll be changed as well with the tensioner. Not taking any chances here.
Mercedes makes some amazing cars, but they also do some amazingly stupid things. How are you supposed to work on the passenger's side cylinder head - removing the exhaust manifold and what have you, with the battery shield protruding so much into the engine bay. I always thought that British cars were designed by the devil. Now I see that Germans cars are just as bad.

Top End Rebuild - Day 3

Spent about 4 hours on the car today. Wasted an hour trying to split the "Mixture Control Unit" into two pieces thinking it would aid in removal. But later found that you only need to remove the fuel pipes, the 4 mounting bolts and loosen the hose clamp on the air duct/guide housing and just yank the damn thing off. No need for splitting it.

Damn the throttle linkages. The worst design I've ever seen. Its going to be a real pain putting it back together.

Removed all the bolts on the intake manifold and loosened up the hose clamps on the two hoses going into the bulk head and the one hose going into the water pump. Tried to lift the intake manifold off but it just wouldn't budge. I can't figure out what's holding it back. Kept yanking at it for a good 30 mins and gave up. I'm going to get a bloody hernia if I keep at it.

How do I get the intake manifold off?

Top End Rebuild - Day 2

Spent about 3hours on the car today. You would think that being German made there would be a little more logic to how things are designed and laid out in the engine bay but you would be wrong. Its just as convoluted, if not more so, than working on the XJ12.

The whole intake manifold / induction system is stupidly over complex. There are 100s of fittings for the most trivial things. The throttle linkage alone has about 30 components to it on the 560SEL. Compared to less than 5 pieces for the XJ12.

I wanted to have removed the intake manifold by today but there was just so much fettling to remove all the injection fuel lines that I didn't get that far. I loosened up all the intake manifold bolts so hopefully it will be out by Day 3.

The official Mercedes Workshop Manual is the dumbest service manual you will ever see. "Remove Intake Manifold" is one step in the head gasket R&R job (01-415) - I've spent 2 days removing the bloody intake manifold! You only really figure out the order in which to remove things once you get down to it. Lots of trial and error. Eg. I made the mistake of removing the injector retention bracket on Cylinder #7 before removing the fuel line and spent about half an hour correcting my mistake.

Finding parts numbers for all these vacuum fittings is turning out to be a little problematic. The dealership's parts catalogue is really ambiguous. Order the wrong part and you have to pay for it. Oh and that silly 20cm worth of metal fuel line I busted on Day 1, costs $250 from the dealer!

Some part of the throttle linkage was covering one of the intake manifold bolts. Couldn't figure out how to remove it properly, so I just bent that piece upwards. Hopefully I'm not going to get into trouble for this. It only had some wires grounded on it, so it shouldn't be a problem.









Look at how stupidly they have routed this vacuum line - under the fuel injection retention bracket. No wonder they are all brittle and breaking apart.



Found a leaf on the intake manifold. How did that get there!














Doesn't look like much progress, but I'm exhausted.