Buy a NEW one sorta With a little fab work and lots of money you can put a new engine in there. No computer neccissary!

Then he'd likely decide that he's not going to seperate the engine from its rightfull body and just keep driving the MB.

One important test on a used mercedes diesel engine is to obstruct the crankcase breather with your thumb. Apparently the increasing crankcase pressure shuts the injection pump down. If engine can run 15 seconds before quitting it is supposed to have acceptable blowby. But check the search function for better description of this. I do not know what temperature to do this at but suspect operating temperature for example. The factor that you are not in a panic for an engine helps a lot. Look for a rustout that had a new or properly rebuilt engine installed not too long before it's demise. They are out there. This may also avoid the changing load situation. It's like an old fable. Change the load charactaristic on a pretty good engine and Watch the rings pump oil pretty soon. This perhaps does not apply to mercedes diesels but have seen it with gas engines before. :) edit:regarding the previous post The landrover addiction is possibly worse than us driving oil funaces or tractors as my daughters used to say. Wonder if the land rovers are still made from recycled aluminium beer cans? :D

He's right it will shut it down. I had one confuse me for awhile that would start and run for about 10 seconds and then shut off. The owner had the airbox out to strip and paint it when he called me with the problem about it not running very long. He had the blowby hose plugged directly into the oil drain tube from the seperator... I unhooked it and the car ran fine... only took me an hour to figure it out :o