I've got my 300D down, tucked away in the garage for a laundry list of repairs and maintenance. Part of that is a valve adjustment. I thought I'd be able to outsmart the car and use the standard straight wrenches but alas, that won't be possible.

Anyone willing to lend a set of MBZ or even the modded angled style of wrench to do the job? Heck, I'll even buy you pizza and beer to watch me do the job in my heated garage. Willing to travel most areas in metroland to pick up and return. I'm located in Acworth, just off of wade green near Kennesaw.

Thanks!

I had a set fabricated recently and just completed a valve adjustment on my 240D. Send me a PM with an address and I will throw mine in one of the $5 express envelopes for you to borrow.

Sounds like you have it solved. Let me add that IF the spring and cap start turning (sometimes they don't) I just use a pair of needle nose Vise-Grips and that works fine. It doesn't seem to take a huge amount of torque to keep them in place.

I just heated and bent a couple of cheap wrenches and they work fine.

Dan

FSM calls for fairly frequent adjustments. You may as well bite the bullet and buy or make some.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Every 15k miles.

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Jim

If you're making a set, don't stop with two. Make a couple more at different angles so it's quicker to find two that work between cam bearings.

Sixto
83 300SD
98 E320 wagon

Thanks so much for the offer. I ended up going with junk man's advice...
Bought a vice, torch and wrenches today. Just sitting down to do the fun part now.

The pelican DIY for the valve adjustment only says 22mm feeler gouges, but later says there are two gauge sizes, one for I the other for E. The closest I could find at my local parts place was 22.9mm, would this be sufficient? Can anyone confirm the two sizes I'd need?

I did mine in the English/old SAE equivalent (I forget the numbers) and they worked fine. I bet you'll find that the 22.9mm is something even in English units. I'll look them up for you. I'm pretty sure there are 2 different sizes for I & E.

EDIT: You owe me! (j/k) NOT 22mm! That's like an inch! Nope - should be I= 0.10mm or 0.004 in. E= 0.35mm or 0.014 inch. Seems like I had to round off to 0.015 on the exhaust given the leaves I have in my set but that's an unimportant difference. Remember that as long as all the leaves are clean you can stack feeler gages for the right size and it has no measurable effect on the measurement (I've stacked them and measured the stack with a mic.).

Dan

I use regular open-ended wrenches. I always have room to swing them between the tubes. Perhaps I just got lucky. One is a Craftsman box and the other a HF set of thin open-ended wrenches. I recall you need 14 mm, and I found 9/16" also fits for a 2nd one for those w/ old U.S. cars like me.

BTW, as you do the final tightening, the gap sometimes changes. Takes practice to push more on one wrench than the other to hold it, since the valve can spin. I usually re-learn on the first few valves, then goes quicker.

But, if you want to bend wrenches I found you can pickup loose wrenches at swap meets for $0.25 ea. I grabbed enough to make sets for my sons. Many are better U.S. made steel. I keep extras to choose, because sometimes you need just the right handle length, offset, or hex clocking for that fussy bolt, especially on newer cars where there is little room.

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1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

I'm with you, Bill. I have 2 drawers full of old cast-off wrenches that I grab, bend, weld - whatever to get the job done. Some end up looking mighty weird.

Dan

Couldn't find my old ones and WalMart has a set for about $3. Worked great. Got needed wrenches from Tractor Supply for about $3 each, fabrication charge was $35. I made two prototypes out of some stock aluminum flat bar !/8" by 1/2" and gave that to the fabricator as a model. Worked out great. Total tool costs for valve adjustment < $45.
Good luck with your project.

From the FSM: 615, 616, 617 Engine cold

Intake: .10 mm

Exhaust: 615, 616, (617.91 non-Turbo) .30 mm


I don't have the feeler gauges in front of me but mine doesn't have the exact gauges required so I just go .002 over or whatever is close.

Be sure that you are using the correct marking on the feeler gauge. You want mm and not inches.

Use a "go/no-go gauge. The individual gauges blades are stepped. The correct gauge will fit, the next size up doesn't. Err on the side of too loose.

I got tired of digging for the correct blades and moved them so that hey are the 1st 2 in the gage.
Exhaust 617.95 (Turbo) .35 mm

With engine hot add .05 mm

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

For whatever reason the VC did NOT want to go back on easily. Anyway, with a little bit of struggle I got it in but I believe I broke a vacuum (?) line. Can anyone tell me what this is and what would need to be done to replace?

That looks like the boost pressure sense line that runs from the back of the intake manifold to the switchover valve on the bulkhead.
A second line boost pressure sense line runs from the switchover valve to the ALDA.

That broken line needs to be replaced...as is your IP won't give full fuel and the turbo won't boost.
You can use vacuum tubing in its place as a temporary/permanent fix.

While the line is out, being mended (or replaced with a new or used boost sensor line), this would be a good time to clean out any accumulated soot in the banjo bolt that attaches the line to the back of the intake manifold.
Note: don't lose the two small crush washers for the banjo bolt when you remove and reinstall the banjo bolt.

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78 W116 300SD 'Desert Rose' new as of 01/26/2014
79 W116 300SD 'Stormcloud' RIP 04/11/2022

Thanks for the response! I'm a little confused; this line looks like it runs from somewhere near the firewall in the center of the bay, then forward into the mess of lines running together into the firewall by the brake booster. I can snug a piece of vacuum tubing from the end I see to its home pretty easily if it's reachable.