BTW Joe Sabo in Cincinnati did the engine work. Heck, I didn't even give the guy credit after everything he does for me In the previous novel, I mean post.

It does sound like you have a lot of expereince with the dealers here in Ohio.I moved to Columbus in 1997 from Dallas Texas and was used to dealers that were 3-4 times the size of the dealers here...so I had to get accustomed to different practices here....two years ago my engine was replaced...and like you it included water pump starter..etc..etc...much of mine was covered by warranty..thank god...as was the $5100 evap core, dash pushbutton unit and blower resisitor repair that occured about 3 months before that...all of my service except a recent brake job and fan clutch repair has been done by Crown...Crown has done about $20,000 of work on the car(mostly warranty) since I have owned it
The techs at Crown told me that they have done a few short blocks on 350's that have come thorugh their shop.Curiously at the same time I was haveing a new engine installed there was a blk 1992 300SD as Potter MB having the same exercise done...althought I think that gentleman's car had mileage in the 140's at that time...its funny because at the time I had a heated conversation with the MB service zone rep and he PROMISED me that he had NEVER seen anyone have problems with the replacement engines...time will tell I guess

Warren
1992 300SD
Columbus Ohio

Warren, you seem like you are very interested in keeping that diesel at top notch like me. Shoot me an email I have come across a few tips out of the engineers in germany when I was there last month. jwii@zoomtown.com BTY MB north america agreed to give me 100K mileage warranty on my engine as I drive about 50K per year. Best Regards. JW

May we all "hear" the tips from the engineers in Germany?

you can e-mail me at ....turner@greif.com....any tips that you might have......how did you get MB to give you 100K warranty!!..very interesting...I have had several "heated" discussion with the regional MB rep....and he didn't give me 100K warranty...as for the engine I think list is about $8600.00...hard to tell what they sold it to me for exactly...I think something in the 7,000 range...but had warranty paytment involved also...and also some exploration/inspection charges that the warranty company wanted done because of the size of the claim...espacially since they just paid a $5000 A/C claim just about 3-4 months before the engine problems


Warren
1992 300SD 143k
Columbus Ohio

Interesting fact that you mentioned also earlier JW is "do not rebuild"...when you have problems with this engine.......The cases that I have seen where the car was still under MB warranty(new car or starmark) they have replaced the shortblock of the car and kept the existing head and turbo intact...I do know of one case where the gentleman had 65K miles...MB paid half of a 13K repair bill


Warren
1992 300SD 143K
Columbus Ohio

The biggest tip I received was what to put in your fuel to keep the intake side clean. I got to see an example of an engine that had this done. You can only do this if you do not have a trap oxidizer or a other exhaust side polution control devices. Doing this will kill those devices. You put 1/2 of a quart of desxron III tranny fluid in every other tank of fuel. Does not have to be expensive go to a place that sells the stuff in gallons. Buy it cheap. The car tends to smoke a little more at start up, but does not affect performance. They showed me intake valves that had not been cleaned and they had cycled for over 2,000 hours equivalent of roughly 80,000 miles. the metals had darkened, but they did not have any carbon buildup! Cool stuff. The company I work for works with Bosch, Cummins, Caterpillar and Siemens and I have asked almost every engineer about this and they all said the same thing. With all the detergents in the tranny fluid it keeps the intake superclean and it doesn't have any of the crap that injector cleaners do that can make the head just a little bit hotter, while using it. The second thing that they were telling me about was the original problem with the rod design was it needed better lubrication. The second generation rod had an additional hole in it for lubrication and they were made a shade heavier. The other thing is the new engine has a different head configuration. They also said that when having the engine put back together make sure the shop does NOT use silicone based gasket sealers. they recommend loctite 518, since if it (loctite 518) gets in the crank it won't kill the overhead oiling system. The other thing is there is a recommendation to have the front of the car 12" off the ground when you bleed the coolant. This is in the form of a TSB that most dealers and techs don't know about. Also, 55% Distilled H2O and 45% MB coolant.


Best Regards