I recently bought an 82 380sl from an estate and it was in very good condition, 158000 miles, no documentation, cheap, I drove it for the last 3 months giving it routine maintenance and the car was great, I noticed the engine was blowing a little blue smoke after long downhill coasts and figured it was valve guide seals, I had done this job before on another MB and thought I would give it a go. Pulled a valve cover and you guessed it single row timing chain. I looked around at various forums and the consensus seemed to be leave it single row and change every 25k , I got a new chain and a spare master link , but they are rivets style links, How do you seal or swage the new links onto the chain? also how do you drag the new chain through without a way to temporarily hook the new and old chains together? do I need to change the guides? pull the timing chain cover?
thanks for any advice

 

that's something I didn't know, I thought there would be a master link on your old chain too. did you rotate the motor the full length of the chain. if there, attach new chain at the separation point/master link of the old chain. otherwise, remove cover, you can't tell the condition of the guides without removing cover anyway. if you plan on keeping the car, probably a good idea to do the job right and replace guides too. that way you don't need to thread the chain using the old one. you should be able to go at least 100k before changing again. the blue smoke coasting down hill is more likely valve stem seals rather than guides, unless plugs are getting fouled and maybe the engine is missing. If problem is still there after valve stem replacement. I have had good luck in the past using a quart of transmission fluid for about 2,000 miles in my oil to dissolve varnish around the rings, it gets them loose on the piston again, that can sometimes help with excessive oil use and smoking too. see how it does on the next oil change. repeat again if neccessary. if problem persists, might try a higher viscosity oil. I like a 10-40 castrol full synthetic for my old sl.