Hello, nice to meet everyone. As stated Im new to the Mercedes world.. not new at all to the car world... Ive been building street rods, quarter mile cars, replica vehicles, and trick vehicles for many years, not to mention jetskis and jet boats. I run my fathers collision repair shop, and work on all makes and years, every day. So Im fairly good at mechanics and figuring things out.
Anyways, this last week I purchased a 1997 280c AMG Sport, silver, extremely clean, 89K miles. 6 cylinder, automatic. It had a blown headgasket, result of broken plastic coolant fitting at rear drivers side of firewall.
No problem, I thought, Ive done dozens of headgasket jobs, on audis, VWs, even a few Porsche, so how bad could a Mercedes be, right? Hmmm...
I tore it down, with few to non problems, had the head checked out, and went about to put everything back together. Im TD on crank, My cams are set correct, and I have exactly the same amount of links between cam sprockets as before I took apart, everything I marked with paint pen is all lined up...
Heres the PROBLEM: I go to put the tensioner back in through the hole by the alternator, but as I tighten it in... it makes the timing chain EXTREMELY tight....
I have checked timing numerous times, turned over by hand, etc, etc, tried the "clutch" sprocket (drivers side cam sprocket) both ways... nothing changes.
I spent several hours today trying to figure it out, googling it, etc... finally a friend told me about this Forum for Mercedes owners,, so here I am.
Should I have not taken the tensioner out? Or???
Thank you in advance for any help.
Anyways, this last week I purchased a 1997 280c AMG Sport, silver, extremely clean, 89K miles. 6 cylinder, automatic. It had a blown headgasket, result of broken plastic coolant fitting at rear drivers side of firewall.
No problem, I thought, Ive done dozens of headgasket jobs, on audis, VWs, even a few Porsche, so how bad could a Mercedes be, right? Hmmm...
I tore it down, with few to non problems, had the head checked out, and went about to put everything back together. Im TD on crank, My cams are set correct, and I have exactly the same amount of links between cam sprockets as before I took apart, everything I marked with paint pen is all lined up...
Heres the PROBLEM: I go to put the tensioner back in through the hole by the alternator, but as I tighten it in... it makes the timing chain EXTREMELY tight....
I have checked timing numerous times, turned over by hand, etc, etc, tried the "clutch" sprocket (drivers side cam sprocket) both ways... nothing changes.
I spent several hours today trying to figure it out, googling it, etc... finally a friend told me about this Forum for Mercedes owners,, so here I am.
Should I have not taken the tensioner out? Or???
Thank you in advance for any help.