Top End Rebuild - Post Op

With the heavy wrenching complete I can start looking at sorting out all the little things. The car starts and runs smooth. But when in gear and foot on the brake, the engine shakes quite a bit. It doesn't feel like worn engine mounts. Its definitely something a little more complicated.

The only issues I know of is a leaking EHA valve and a broken vacuum check valve. Both of which I'll be ordering new tomorrow. The shaking is scaring me a little. Being my first rebuild I'm worried I might have screwed up something. But since the car drives and idles fine, its all a bit strange.










From what I know the EHA valve it meant for small fuel mixture adjustments. Thus it doesn't seem likely the cause of the shaking. As for the check valve (A126 800 00 78), I have no idea what it does. The EPC describes it as "Air conditioner case to partition panel" - doesn't sound like it affects idle.

I've ordered a case of Joe Gibbs HR-1 (15w50) motor oil for the 560. I've read many good things about this stuff. Its got high levels of ZDDP and unlike folks like Royal Purple, they're not afraid to provide their mixture quantities. That alone makes me believe its going to be better than Royal Purple.

I've also ordered a new distributor cap and rotor. The old rotor looks a little burnt.

Hopefully all these things together should sort out the shaking. If not I don't mind sending it out to the dealer to do the finishing touches. I've saved myself easily $5,000.00 in garage fees by doing the top-end rebuild myself, so I can afford to send it out for a few things now. It could definitely have the timing done more professionally.

Tallying up the hours for rebuild gives a total of 55hrs. Given that Mercedes-Benz quoted me 40+hrs as a rough estimate, I'm pretty happy with my performance :) Especially without having any power tools or a hoist to help me.

The most difficult job of the rebuild has to be removing and reinstalling the exhaust manifolds. Getting all the little fittings in the engine bay installed is also very time consuming. But I suppose it could have gone completely differently had any of the head bolt threads in the block stripped. Thank God that didn't happen to me.