If you can't find the smoking gun look for the vultures to start circling. Wait, different question, bad pun.

Run a compression check, there is already a thread.

GM makes a top end cleaner that has been known to free stuck rings in rare instances. It is cheap and may be worth a try if you take your injectors out for another reason.

A leak down test is probably better than a compression check.

both are valuable, no doubt. Out of all the vehicles I've ever bought, I've never compression tested one of them. Not that I didn't want to, but I check everything myself, and I wouldn't feel right asking a seller if I could jump into his engine and pull stuff off to compression/leak test it. Nor would I allow someone buying a car from me to do the same. Bring it to an established mechanic and pay them if someone really cares, usually people care more about how clean the glass is.

I WOULD, however, ask if I could unhook the breather hose and put the bag on it. It literally takes seconds and no tools and I bet most sellers would agree to that. If there were some known comparative values, which is what I'd like to establish, then someone could try the test and say "Gee, I looked at a sweet looking wagon. Started OK, and filled the bag in 15 seconds. Car has no rust and the price is right, should I buy it?" One could be advised that this might be OK for around town use in Florida, but not a regular highway commuter in Minn.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Now would that be Hefty brand or store brand bags?

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

what you need is a slack tube manometer. test off blow by tube, you can make one for less then $10 or buy one homemade versions can be found in a web search, either work fine
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7506600348

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74 240D rolling restoration, daily driver
ASE Master Truck Technician
I enjoy my work so much I had to buy a diesel to play with !

well, you certainly could use a manometer to check the crankcase pressure, and that would be useful too. All you need is a piece of clear plastic tubing, attach to pressure source, loop it into a "U" shape and pour a few inches of water in. The difference in water levels from 1 side to the other is the pressure differential. About 27.7" water=1 psi. However, I think that a better indicator of cylinder blowby can be had by measuring FLOW rather than PRESSURE. My engine for example, generates relatively low blowby FLOW, (I believe), yet can generate relatively high PRESSURE, as the valve cover, crank seals, oil pan seals, etc. are really tight, perhaps as evidenced in the last picture I posted here which shows the bag connected to the crankcase still pressurized 20 minutes after engine shutdown. An older, leaky engine with a lot of blowby will generate much higher FLOW and pressure be a function of both cylinder blowby and seal condition.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Well, anyone willing to give this a try? For those of you going to the NE GTG, you could do sort of a "reverse race" to see who has the most hot air! I'm homebound this weekend....Ahh, I couldah been a contendah!

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

All this blowby test talk with garbage bags (has anybody tried the Glad ForceFlex bags yet) and stuff got me to thinking, and I went to wallyworld and bought a sack of the party-whistles that both make a noise and 'roll-out' when they are blowed....maybe called party screamers or some sort. I found a nice sack of scooby-do whistles for a measley $1.89

I disconnected the crankcase vent and ducktaped the party whistle to the tube. At 1500 rpms the whistle was hardly blowin and only rolled out a almost imperceptible amount, but when I checked it with a micromenter it had actually unrolled a couple of thousandths....but that is insignificant I think.

At 2000 rpms the whistle begun to scream and unrolled, rolled, unrolled, rolled, and produced a fluctuating whistling sound that drew several of my neighbors over to see what was the matter. At full throttle the whistle shot off the hose and hit a woodpecker that was watchin from the sidelines. Luckily the bird survived the blow (they are endangered speci here) but he has a crooked bill. I don not know how that will affect his chances of survival, but he looked happy as he flew off.

I was almost embarrased but thankfully the wife was not home. Should the blowby present a consistent flow/pressure ? I could have sworn that the car was tryin to play that rupert holmes song 'escape' but it was probly just my imagination. I plan to try the spiderman whistles soon.

roflol...

You all need adult supervision~!

Sooooooo how many inches of party whistle is considered to be an acceptable level of blowby?

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1980 300TD-T (82 Turbo and Trans) 159,000 Miles "Jackie-O"
1983 300SD 272,000 Miles "Aristotle"
1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited - keeps the MB's off the ice and out of the snow
1994 BMW 530it

My girlfriend says eight.

Now, stop that!!

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1981 240d
Newport,RI

And when it pops in the water...the kids get a nice oil job to cut down their lap times!

Something makes me want to put a controllable valve on the breather tube now where I can divert it through either a DUCK CALL whistle or through its regular path to the air cleaner....


Such as how these guys attached it to their Subaru WRX-turbo

Subaru WRX Duck-Mod Video

(Right Click link and do "Save As")

I'll never cease to be amused by this.....

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

I know...so funny!

Someone just asked about blowby inside another thread but I can find it.. so BTT...

I posted two years ago to use an old house gas meter. It measures flow. The problem with the plastic bag method is that once the bag is inflated, it provides back pressure, thus not an accurate reading. The gas meter is attached on the breather hose nipple. The only issue is to find an old gas meter (they measure flow, not pressure).

Pete: good idea, but not the right application.

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84 300DT Puke Yellow. Totalled after 438,000
84 300DT Orient Red. 169,000 (actual mileage may vary)
2002 Explorer EB (wife's)