Hey everyone!
This is going to be a somewhat detailed write up for the reassembly of my 3.8L M116 engine. I'm not going to go into extreme detail, I'm just going to post pictures and other stuff like that as I reinstall/replace parts. Here's the rundown...
About a year ago exactly, I blew the head gasket on my 1984 380SE. I'm a teenager who drives cars hard, so it was kind of expected. lol
Anyway... From the spring last year to now, I have been tearing it apart. I just recently got the heads off after getting stuck on a number of roadblocks along the way (as well as being in high school). I have basically no automotive experience, but I have the Internet, and that's usually all you need these days as long as you have a basic understanding of these things. Well, not exactly.
It seems as though not a lot of people pull the timing cover while the engine is still in the car, or while the upper oil pan is still attached. I was really looking for reliability and longevity in this repair, so I knew I needed to pull it to get to those lower guides as well as the oil pump chain rail.
As of today, I have gotten the timing cover off. Note that both my heads were already off. It wasn't easy with the upper pan in the way, but it's off without me having to break anything haha. Here's what I had to do...
-Swing AC compressor and bracket out of the way.
-Remove oil dipstick tube (I did this by heating up around where it goes into the pan and tapping it out with a hammer)
-Unbolt every bolt on the front of the cover (the hex plugs can be left in)
-Unbolt (x6) upper oil pan bolts (5mm). 4 on the front, two on the sides. The right side one is hidden behind the AC compressor. You can use an Allen key, but I used a short socket with a 1/4" box end around the shaft. (so ghetto)
-Start to pry the cover away from the block. There are dowels going into it and they're kind of hard to overcome.
Here's where it gets tricky...
-Unbolt the oil pump from the cover (x3 13mm bolts on the bottom)
-Remove the chain from the oil pump.
-Rotate the tensioner's "spring" out of the timing cover. There are many ways to do this, but I just approached it from the bottom and did a lot of wiggling.
-Take the chain off of its crank sprocket, moving it forward toward the cam chain sprocket (IIRC). Basically anything that will give the rail more room to move up.
-Move tensioner rail upwards so it clears the oil pan.
-Pull timing cover forward and off.
I'm sure there are many other ways to do this, but it's really tight in there, so you have to sort of improvise. I made a ghetto tool out of a long 3/8 extension, duct tape, and an Allen key to fish the pump chain from the top, but a lot of this is done from the bottom. It's still very helpful.
I'll attach some pictures of my engine at the moment. Excuse the grease and other crap. The front main had been leaking for who knows how long.
Here's the oil pump tensioner rail:
Notice the wear after 180k miles.
And that's the lower rounded guide that often gets neglected under the timing cover.
So this is the end of my first post. I hope this will be beneficial for some Benz newbies like myself. Benz veterans, please chime in on anything that I missed. Thanks!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is going to be a somewhat detailed write up for the reassembly of my 3.8L M116 engine. I'm not going to go into extreme detail, I'm just going to post pictures and other stuff like that as I reinstall/replace parts. Here's the rundown...
About a year ago exactly, I blew the head gasket on my 1984 380SE. I'm a teenager who drives cars hard, so it was kind of expected. lol
Anyway... From the spring last year to now, I have been tearing it apart. I just recently got the heads off after getting stuck on a number of roadblocks along the way (as well as being in high school). I have basically no automotive experience, but I have the Internet, and that's usually all you need these days as long as you have a basic understanding of these things. Well, not exactly.
It seems as though not a lot of people pull the timing cover while the engine is still in the car, or while the upper oil pan is still attached. I was really looking for reliability and longevity in this repair, so I knew I needed to pull it to get to those lower guides as well as the oil pump chain rail.
As of today, I have gotten the timing cover off. Note that both my heads were already off. It wasn't easy with the upper pan in the way, but it's off without me having to break anything haha. Here's what I had to do...
-Swing AC compressor and bracket out of the way.
-Remove oil dipstick tube (I did this by heating up around where it goes into the pan and tapping it out with a hammer)
-Unbolt every bolt on the front of the cover (the hex plugs can be left in)
-Unbolt (x6) upper oil pan bolts (5mm). 4 on the front, two on the sides. The right side one is hidden behind the AC compressor. You can use an Allen key, but I used a short socket with a 1/4" box end around the shaft. (so ghetto)
-Start to pry the cover away from the block. There are dowels going into it and they're kind of hard to overcome.
Here's where it gets tricky...
-Unbolt the oil pump from the cover (x3 13mm bolts on the bottom)
-Remove the chain from the oil pump.
-Rotate the tensioner's "spring" out of the timing cover. There are many ways to do this, but I just approached it from the bottom and did a lot of wiggling.
-Take the chain off of its crank sprocket, moving it forward toward the cam chain sprocket (IIRC). Basically anything that will give the rail more room to move up.
-Move tensioner rail upwards so it clears the oil pan.
-Pull timing cover forward and off.
I'm sure there are many other ways to do this, but it's really tight in there, so you have to sort of improvise. I made a ghetto tool out of a long 3/8 extension, duct tape, and an Allen key to fish the pump chain from the top, but a lot of this is done from the bottom. It's still very helpful.
I'll attach some pictures of my engine at the moment. Excuse the grease and other crap. The front main had been leaking for who knows how long.
Here's the oil pump tensioner rail:
Notice the wear after 180k miles.
And that's the lower rounded guide that often gets neglected under the timing cover.
So this is the end of my first post. I hope this will be beneficial for some Benz newbies like myself. Benz veterans, please chime in on anything that I missed. Thanks!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk