I am very grateful to the help I’ve received on the Peach Parts Mercedes forum and particular Roy’s patience.

I recently removed the intake manifold on my 1996 C280 inline 6. I read many people were having trouble and noted various techniques.

First important warning is the plastic intake manifold is relatively delicate. There are two vacuum ? hoses under the center of the maniforld up against the block / head. Assuming the hoses are clamped with factory spring clamps, iIf one doesn’t want to buy the hose clamp removal tool with the remote wire ($35 to $40) I recommend cutting the hoses and replacing them rather than take the chance of breaking the hose nipples off the intake manifold.

Second, I found it simple to crack the manifold bolts loose with an allen key after gently tapping the allen key into the bolt to make sure it was seated correctly before applying pressure. The difficulty many people have mentioned is spinning the loose but long manifold bolts out. What I recommend is purchasing several allen keys and cutting them into various straight lengths.

I clamped them in a vise then I cut them with a thin blade in my angle grinder. They get very hot. Drop in water. Then attach a relatively stiff plastic tube or spring to each piece of allen. These little tools will easily spin out all the loosened intake manifold bolts. You may have to switch out different lengths depending on the obstructions. You can also fit a 6mm open end wrench to the allen piece but it’s a lot slower.

This worked very well for the (much hated) rear bottom bolt on my car because it fit by the fuel rail bracket whereas none of my allen sockets nor wobble sockets would.

Tim the Artist

Nice tips, I'm sure they'll be useful to the DIYers on the M104 engine.

A length of fuel/vacuum hose that fits snugly over the allen key is an old mechanics' trick, too.