I did something incredibly stupid tonight.

I was pulling the pre-chambers from my wifes 300D. To make a long story short, I was rushing to get them pulled before the sun went down.

I neglected to the glow plugs before removing the prechamber. Well I got one out and realized what I had done when I saw a clean swath down the face of the prechamber. I shined a light down into the cylinder and I can see shards of metal, likely from both the prechamber and the glowplug.

I am really not all that interested in pulling the head to clean this. Is it possible to just use a magnet to pull the bits of metal out?

The car has been having some odd power problems and I was hoping clean injectors and pre-chambers might help a little.

Any hope?

__________________
'84 300CD Turbo 132k (Anthracite Grey) - WVO - My daily driver - Recently named coo-coo-coupe by my daughter.
'84 300D Turbo 240k (Anthracite Grey) - Garage Queen
'83 300D Turbo 220k (Orient Red) - WVO - Wifes daily driver

I'm not a certified mechanic, but I did stay at a HolidayInn Express last night.

I wonder if you couldn't rig a small hose to a vacuum and vac any carbon or whatever out that a magnet wouldn't get? Or blow some air in there from an air compressor?

Do not use compressed air to blow in there...
Find a way to vacuum what you can....
then use oil to cause any chips which may be beside the piston but above the top ring to stick to the side of the bore... move the piston down by hand rotating the engine... and wipe with clean rag....

when finished, if you can find a boroscope, try that to see if you got it all out.

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1980 500SE/AMG Euro
1981 500SEL Euro
1982 380SEL
1983 300TD
1983 500SEC/AMG Euro
1984 500SEC
1984 300TD Euro
1986 190E 2.3-16
1986 190E 2.3
1987 300D
1997 C36 AMG
2003 C320T 4matic

past: 1969 280SE 4.5 | 1978 240D | 1978 300D | 1981 300SD | 1981 300SD | 1982 300CD | 1983 300CD | 1983 300SD | 1983 380SEC | 1984 300D | 1984 300D | 1984 300TD | 1984 500SEL | 1984 300SD | 1985 300D | 1986 300E | 1986 560SEL | 1986 560SEL/Carat | 1987 560SEC | 1991 300D 2.5 | 2006 R350

Why not use compressed air? That was my first thought. Make sure the valves are closed, insert a thin tube connected to the compressed air line and blow out the debris. Are you concerned about swarf getting trapped between the cylinder and piston?

Exactly..you stand a very good chance of driving the debriss down alongside the piston...

__________________
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

Just any type of oil? Or should it be thick?

What kills me is I was doing the swap in order to make a final decision on wether to let the insurance company total the car or not. The car has had a power problem that has plagued it since the day I bought it.

I'd let them total it and buy it back, but they are under the impression that they can get $1,600 in salvage for the car.

__________________
'84 300CD Turbo 132k (Anthracite Grey) - WVO - My daily driver - Recently named coo-coo-coupe by my daughter.
'84 300D Turbo 240k (Anthracite Grey) - Garage Queen
'83 300D Turbo 220k (Orient Red) - WVO - Wifes daily driver

I'm not a certified mechanic, but I did stay at a HolidayInn Express last night.

Leather: How do you get the clean rag into the cylinder, thru the prechamber hole in the head? Good luck.

James: First use a magnet. to get out as much as U can. Then I would have the exhaust valve open for any debris to go out of the cylinder into the exhaust system when using compressed air to clean out the cylinder. There will be very few particles <0.001" that would fit between the piston and the cylinder wall. Don't put oil in the cylinder, it will just make the particles stick in the cylinder.

P E H

at least on gas-burners with spark plug holes, a grease-coated tampon securely fastened to a piece of coat hanger often makes a great super-sized Q-tip in such situations. Give due credit to my wife for suggesting this solution in a similar crisis years and years ago.

James, just regular ole 30 wt will be fine... just squirt enough for it to run around the piston egde and the bore...
fine stuff will be stuck there when you lower the piston.... have used this method for years....

I guess I could pull a ' Larry Bible' and claim that PEH is " tormenting " me... given how many things he contradicted of what I said... but will stick to physics and other people's suggestions which are standard for the situations they find themselves in...

How are you going to just randomly open an exhaust valve ?

I know that PEH has a lathe and experience in machine shops... so I am REALLY surprised at his contradicting what I said about no compressed air.. if you read anything like Lautard's Machinist's Bedside Reader you know that small spaces like would be between anything which traveled on the bed or ways of a lathe can get stuff blown between them with compressed air which CAN NOT be gotten out without completely dissassembling the machine... and we are talking same sorts of sizes here....

Don't you guys have baling wire available ? take either baling wire.. or safety wire and make some small patches of clean cotton cloth... wire them to the end and use them to wipe up the oil and stuff which is left behind when the piston goes down... make take several turns of the crank total... but you can get several wipes from one downstroke...

Leather,

I worked in a tool and model shop for 10+ years. It was SOP to blow chips and debris off machines. I never knew of a machine that had to be repaired because of blowing off the chips.

How do I open an exhaust valve? Turn the engine by hand using the crankshaft nut until it is just before TDC on the exhaust stroke. Then blow out the debris in the cylinder.

P E H

"How do I open an exhaust valve? Turn the engine by hand using the crankshaft nut until it is just before TDC on the exhaust stroke."--PEH

That is what I was afraid of..... that might require two or three strokes of the piston before you got to that place...with the junk traveling with the piston and ring.... It would be best to start taking out any particles beginning the first time the piston starts downward ( turning the engine in the proper direction all the time ).

" It was SOP to blow chips and debris off machines. I never knew of a machine that had to be repaired because of blowing off the chips."-PEH

I did not say repaired... I said cleaned.... most machines like that will take years to wear out even abused... we also don't know what tolerances the machines which are subject to that sort of thing were being used for by the end of your ten years... lots of sloppy machines continue to be used because the operator allows for the problem and fixes it with another procedure... if you can't hold a close tolerance on a lathe over a long distance then you get as close as you can and then grind to specs...
The best example of the former was the Triumph Motorcycle Co... when the guy that had done the boring for decades retired they could not find anyone who could compensate for the old machine's quirks... and they had to close the company..

It is now standard industry practice when cleaning tooling machines to use oil to flush...as compared to compressed air...

Triumph bit the dust because of a quirky lathe??

Holy crap!!!

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dannym,

Triumph closed because of one employee and an old boring machine, more of Leather's words for the birds. Triumph could have bought a new CNC boring machine that would have done the boring faster and better.

A few revolutions of the engine with debris on top of the piston will do no harm. There is no force on the particles that will force then into any engine metal parts. Many carbon particles break loose in cylinders all the time and go out the exhaust valve with no damage to the engine.

P E H

"Bert Hopwood retires. Trident production launched at BSA Works, Small Heath. Tiger 100 dropped. TR5MX in last year. When BSA Group introduces modernized production process using non-craftspeople as assembly workers, quality falls. "

And this was at a time they were struggling with Japanese competition...
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http://www.collinscycle.com/triumph_motorcycles_history.htm

"Triumph motorcycle production peaked in 1969 at around 46,800 units per year, however by the early 70s the slow supply of components, coupled with tooling problems led to production delays and in 1972, in a Government sponsored move the BSA Group merged with Norton Villiers and Norton-Villiers-Triumph (NVT) was formed. "

These are more oblique references than I was looking for... of course companies seldom miss chances to clean up histories when they can...

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http://www.pollutionengineering.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,6649,117690,00.html

"We're trying to get away from using compressed air to clean devices and components," said Technical Services Manager Joe Thomas. "When you use compressed air hoses to clean equipment, you don't have control of the debris. Our VAC-U-MAX units are a lot cleaner and much easier to maintain, and they help us to clean very specific areas."
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http://ase.tufts.edu/mechanical/shop/classes/me1/lathe.htm

"Use care when cleaning the lathe. Chips sometimes stick in recesses. Remove them with a brush or short stick., NEVER clean a machine tool with compressed air. "
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