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Old 04-17-2011, 12:16 AM
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dieseldiehard dieseldiehard is offline
Dieseldiehard
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Bay Area No Calif.
Posts: 4,368
My silver '87 is back on the road!

Just thought I would keep anyone interested up to date on this.
I found a relatively low mileage engine (161K) and had it installed for 2500 parts and labor see it pictured below.
This car has just 290K showing on the odometer. I think this will breath new life into my wife's daily driver.
I haven't learned what failed in the original engine yet but eventually will when they take it apart. I'm still fairly certain it has a cracked head, the fellow that sold me the engine had lots of experience with the 603 even to the point he tried to convince me to have it welded. A head rebuilder in Northridge stopped repairing cracked aluminum diesel heads as he saw the success rate was pretty low so I am not at all interested in a repaired head.

FWIW, l found a head locally but the seller wanted $1000 for it (probably a #14) but with no guarantee so I was absolutely not interested
I would have paid around $400 for it if it had checked perfect but this engine is running very well so I don't regret letting the head go. If I were really intent on replacing the head I would have ordered a new one for around $1600 (the lowest wholesale price I could find).

This engine had been sitting a while as the car it came out of, a wagon, wasn't run very far for a while. On initial start up it had some lifter noise but that's gone already after a 70 mile run with Mobil One 15W50 in it. It idles really smooth and is strong. The idler pulley, new style Vac Pump, updated plastic fan and thermo clutch came off my donor engine and all are hardly broken in.

I have access to another IP if needed but the one on this engine is not leaking so I should be good to go.

When I get a mileage figure I'll post it here. The only thing not working is the cruise but my wife will never use that feature, so I'm letting that be until I find a good module.
DDH
Attached Thumbnails
WTB OM603 head  for 87 300D-l-side-engine-silver-87-red.jpg  
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'95 E320 Wagon my favorite road car. '99 E300D wolf in sheeps body, '87 300D Sportline suspension, '79 300TD w/ 617.952 engine at 367,750 and counting!
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