Last night, I was reading an issue of STAR (1999, but forgot the exact issue as I am away form h9ome now). There is a nice article about diesel engine maintainance. They used a 601 engine as an example.

It talks about cleaning the carbon in the intake system by removing the cross duct above the engine. I am thinking about doing it. There is one gasket and one o ring that need replacing after the removal. Does anyone know the part number or names for these?

I searched several online parts catalogs and could not come up with anything.

Bo:

I will call Hans tomorrow since I am contemplating this very thing (on two cars!) -- I'll order them and give you the part numbers. I'm going to have to spend an afternoon at the "home" office (shudder) this week, so will be able to pick them up, probably Wednesday.

Be prepared to remove the rest of the intake, too -- I've heard they can get crudded up so bad the compression goes down due to the tiny hole left for air! I expect the condition will be somewhat obvious when you get the crossover pipe off.

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

Peter:

The STAR article I referred to is the May/Jume issue, 1999, page 30.

It also talks about a commercial machine to do the cleaning. It is called "Sun Diesel Motorvac engine cleaning unit" and is available at shops servicing diesel trucks. In the article, there was a pic showing a 124 hooked up to the unit.

Plese forward whatever you find you will need to put things back.

Thanks.

Bo:

Coked oil will be a pure pain to remove -- hard glassy carbon that won't dissolve in much that won't eat the aluminum intake.

Needless to say, complete removal is required -- a chunk of this stuff will bend a rod if it gets in the cylinder!

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

<<
hard glassy carbon
>>

Wish we could process that into diamond.

I pulled my intake off and had the crossover pipe and intake manifold cleaned by a machine shop. They weighed the intake before and after the cleaning, it turns out that i had 1/2 lb of crud in there at 160K miles.
I really didn't notice any difference in the running after after I cleaned it, i did it more for preventative maintenance.

Please post what you find in the intakes when you get around to diassembling them. I'm not planning to do this, but would take what you folks find into consideration.......

Ken300D

I cleaned the intake on my recently purchased SDL awhile back, the car smoked alot. I removed the entire manifold and crossover pipe and let it soak in my parts cleaning tank. After soaking I was able to brush the majority of oil residue out of the manifold and the crossover pipe. I did notice that the vacuum port leading to the ALDA was nearly clogged prior to the cleaning. The bulk of the carbon appeared to be created by the EGR valve. I was able to remove the bulk of that also. It was a relatively simple job and the gaskets were obtained from the Benz Bin. The car seemed to have better performance after that. I also changed the glow plugs while I had the manifold off, it was much easier.