That is a great thread. Thank you. Just what I needed. I'll definitely do a write up if i do it. Happy to finally have a chance to read up on this. Just a spray bottle head stuck into the hole where the blow by tube normally goes and hook it up to the water bottle and run a switch. I'm not sure where I could hook in after the turbo charger as its an aluminum charge tube. However, the port in the intake that connects to the alda could be used eventually maybe. I'm anti alda. I've had 3 cars now with defective aldas. Would that be a good spot for a nozzle? Where did you put your nozzle from the kit you bought? Was that kit worth it? Do you have to use regularly to keep your engine clean?


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This weekend I want to compression test all the cylinder before i do the water injection treatment. And then after. I'm kind of in a pinch though cause my pop tester is not working and i wanted to test and replace any bad injectors while i got em out as well. Hopefully the pop tester will come to life. Its a homemade bottle jack one and it won't pressurize anymore.
Nothings more annoying than when your tools don't work. Worst case i'll do compression test and inspect injectors and glow plugs and take some pics down in the prechambers. All injectors passed the drop test so they are all working to some degree anyway.

I'm pretty convinced its missing on one cylinder at startup when its cold. Guess i should check glow plugs first. I bet i could find the missing cylinder if i do i drop test right after startup one morning. When its warm, none miss.

So does it sound like a stuck ring or rings ? I'm kind of a novice mechanic and want to understand and picture what we think is going on. So is the hypothesis at this point the veggie oil for what ever reason didn't burn good in a cylinder or two , probably because it was too cold , and that "gummed" up the rings. When they are gummy with vegetable oil carbon deposits they don't make a good seal with the cylinder wall and thus we get blow by and low compression in those cylinders.

So what does "gummy" look like and why does it make the rings not seal ? Does it keep motor oil lubricating the walls good ? I guess the worst case scenario would be scored cylinder walls which can't be fixed easily. What would cause that ? Too much VO in cylinder contaminating motor and destroying lubricity?

Thanks all. I'm excited to get to the bottom of this. Appreciate all your help. This week i'm driving the car. On the trip back it got avg 26 mpg.

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Here you go.....

This post explains the issue. It applies mainly to Direct-Injection engines but the effect and cause are the same if Ring-Gumming happens on an Indirect motor....

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum/viewthread.php?tid=8020

The post is fairly long (I do tend to ramble on sometimes!) but all the info is there..

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http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...0TDnoplate.jpg

Alastair AKA H.C.II South Wales, U.K. based member

W123, 1985 300TD Wagon, 256K,
-Most recent M.B. purchase, Cost-a-plenty, Gulps BioDiesel extravagantly, and I love it like an old dog.

W114, 1975 280E Custard Yellow,
-Great above decks needs chassis welding--Really will do it this year....

H2O injection pre turbo is not a good idea unless you have spare turbo's laying around. The water will eat away the blades. Much better post turbo. I'll be installing H20 soon just for that reason- cleaning the inside of the engine. Very little vegoil use for me, but my modified engine likes it when I'm good to her.

Where are you going to hook in the H20 nozzle? The EGR looks like a good place to me. Will take some doing though.

__________________
What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Thanks Alastair. Just the info a needed. A great read.

I pulled the injectors and did a compression test and checked the glow plugs. Before i did I wanted to find out as much as possible. First i checked the glow plugs -- pulled the 6 pin connector at relay and did the resistance test. 3 of them failed the resistance test. Then i hooked up the ammeter to the batter and put one probe in the pins to see which ones drew current. It confirmed the same thing the resistance test did. Glow plugs 1, 3 , 4 were bad.

Next I pinpointed the nailing down to cylinder 3 by doing a drop test. The lound tack, tack, tack like injector nailing goes away when i loosen the nut on injector 3.

I yanked the injectors. Indeed the three glow plugs were bad. That is a terrible thing in a single tank system. The glow plugs are what saves you when burning cold oil. You have to test your glow plugs every few weeks or so. At least every oil change. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when they go out. These were all put in with the veggie system and 3 were bad and 3 weren't. Its really easy to test glow plugs with a good meter , one with at least a 20 amp dc ammmeter is awesome. But you can use a cheap ammeter 50 amp gauge designed for the dash if your multimeter does not go to 20 amps. I replaced them with some good used ones i have.

Here are results of compression test in order of 1 - 6.

350, 410, 100 , 440, 300, 420

So #3 is real bad. It jumped to 300 after adding some oil down the hole. Not sure why #5 is low. I haven't looked up specs for compression on these engines yet. Need to do that. Regardless , #3 is real bad.

The injectors looked good. My pop tester wouldn't work. I replaced the #3 injector just to see if it makes a difference in the nailing sound. I don't think it will. But maybe. But that good oil kept these injectors in good shape. This was a single tank Elsbett system. I'm going to try to see if someone at a local University in a biodiesel club can analyze my oil and see if it meets the Elsbett spec. It shouldn't be hard to get a chemical analysis of the oil. Maybe ever Blackstone or some motor oil analysis company can do it. I bet polymerization and gumming can be predictable if its based on properties of the oil.

Here are a few pics.

Attached Thumbnails

     

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

I agree with MTUpower on this one. In addition, those tiny water droplets are probably like bullets to rapidly spinning turbo blades.

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Codifex
1981 240D ChinaBlue (Got her running with a donor engine.)
1983 300DTurbo w/sunroof.
1984 300TD manual sunroof. (Electrical Gremlins)

I'd hope for simply stuck rings, which lead to your low compression and excessive blowby polluting the intake system. Trying the MMO thing?

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

So where to put it in? Would the port in the center of where that electrical sensor is (what is that anyway?) or the vac line going to the alda be a good spot? Or could i maybe just disconnect the crossover pipe and squirt it in the intake while the engine revs at 2250 rpm? I know i wouldn't be getting any turbo air. And that would be tedious but i could do it in small doses.

__________________
What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Marvel Mystery Oil ? Yep. Was thinking of doing that. I kind of wanted to try WI first as an experiment. But do you just keep pouring in the MMO until it fills the hole and won't take any more. Then let it sit for a week or two? That would be good while I'm building the WI system. But would taint my experiment.

What do you all think about the manual spray in intake while someone revs it for 15 minutes? Then drive. Then do it again. Until about 1 gallon of water or a noticeable difference?

Also, what would be the best fuel to use while i'm doing this ? Obviously , not WVO The PO still had 2/3 wvo in it. Now i've added 22 gallons so far so its pretty much all diluted. However, would maybe a small can of diesel with Diesel cleene or cetane boost or Lubro moly diesel purge be a good idea in combo with the WI? I'm thinking i want to make sure getting extra good bang.

Also, I have the after glow relay so would it be good to do it with glow plugs going? Can restart car every few minutes. If thats good for emmissions I'm thinking its good for the internal combustion chambers as well.

Thanks for all the help.

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Hmm, the good of the car or the good of all mankind, ...

I don't believe that any water or solvent ingested can have the effect that a direct soak on the rings can, but good for cleaning the upper.

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

yup...

a 4" diameter turbo spinning at 100k RPM has a rim speed of 1,189 MPH, OK the MB turbo is smaller, and won't be at full RPM at say 2,500 engine RPM, but even so, it is a very good analogy to something in between extreme bead blasting and water cutting.

Basically it is a great way to kill a turbo very fast indeed.

I tried spraying water/meth combo post turbo into the intake and it seemed to help a little. I got a bottle of Iso Heet gas line antifreeze that is methanol and added it to about 2 quarts of water. Then sprayed that into intake while revving at around 2500 rpms. But the knocking is still there. My compression tester connector is shot and needs a rebuild so I can't tell for certain. Still blow by but at one point the oil cap quit jumping.

I'm going to do another round of water injection this weekend and see. Also i'm adding some Lucas oil stabalizer to the crank case and see how that does as well. Its time to top it off. It seems to not blow by as much if i leave the oil level about 1 qt low.

Looking ahead at future options -- if I can't get the ring unstuck, the car runs great and i can live with the 5 cylinders of power if i can keep that cylinder from seizing up. I wonder, could i block off the injector line going to #3 offending cylinder at the pump? Would that hurt the pump? The idea is i don't want to be squirting wvo in that cylinder.

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

did the last round of water injection today. I got a new spay bottle at autozone that had a nice misting head on it. I used the water bottle and pump this time as my hand got really tired last time. Cranked wired throttle open to 2300 rpms about and misted about a gallon of water in the intake after the turbo. I had to disconnect the charge air crossover tube and mist in that opening. Thinking about it now, i should have disconnected the temp sensor on back of intake and stuck head in there. Oh well.

I also did a diesel purge while i was doing this. I ran two cans of sea foam fuel treatment through it from a jar under the hood. It seemed to run a little smoother.

#3 ist still making the tick tick tick. However, while revving at 2300 I loosened injector #3 the bad cylinder. The rpm's dropped down significantly , like 500 to 1000 rpms i would guess. I should have looked at gauge to see. But it was enough to make me think i could never run the engine without #3.#3 is part of the team as weak as it may be. Hopefully it has gotten stronger.

After the water injection there was still a lot of blow by. Oil cap would bounce in time. I added two quarts of Lucas oil treatment in lat two days.

Next I'm going to soak it with Marvel for a week or two and see how that does. Hopefully it won't use too much oil after that. After that i don't know. How hard is it to just replace that ring on that cylinder? If its a huge deal Ill just drive it til it quits or sell it.


So far i have tried about every snake oil and trick i can

25.00 -- 2 cans of Sea foam for diesel purge (It says helps stuck rings on can)
25.00 -- 2 quarts Lucas oil treatment in crank case
13.00 -- 2 quarts Marvel mystery oil in crank case
5.00 -- 2 bottles Iso Heet Methanol in water injection
-------
78.00 Damn expensive

__________________
What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Still using about 1 qt every 500 miles. I'm going to try soaking the rings next. Do you think doing the water injection while driving *PRE* turbo would make a difference? Maybe more would get forced into the cylinder with turbo engaged. I'll try that if soaking doesn't help.

For now my wife has been driving it and I think she will accept it. She has no choice for a little while since last friday she drove her beetle tdi off the road , busted the oil pan and kept driving until it quit. Thats not getting fixed for a while given I replaced that engine only 6 mos ago because the PO did the same thing to that car. It only had 95,000 miles on it too Damn i wish i had forked out the 300.00 for a skid plate.

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Sorry to hear about the Beetle. An alternative for Marvel is to do the same with ATF - might work out cheaper (I can't get Marvel here - so I had to hunt about for an alternative).

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!