New to me 82 300SD OM617 (supposed 140,000 miles) cold valve adjustment found the existing settings in inches at;

1 : E-0.008, I-0.001
2 : I-0.003, E-0.007
3 : E-0.010, I-0.002
4 : I-0.004, E-0.008
5 : E-0.002, I-0.001

Adjusted to intakes at 0.004 and exhaust to 0.012

Prior cold compression test results;
1 - 343
2 - 340
3 - 340
4 - 360
5 - 363

What does this indicate concerning the past engine maintainance and possible current engine condition. I have no MB history to draw from, but the cam showed no wear in camparision to my gas engine experience. The timing chain and cam gear show no wear either and everything appeared really clean on the top end.

I removed the oil pan and there was zero sludge in the pan. Do MB diesels sludge up if oil is not changed regularly?

yup. the sludge will collect around the cam towers. look in the head bolts. yours sounds great. get the motor warmed up then redo the compression test. I bet you get in the 475 range across the board!

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It's best to do the compression test after the valve are adjusted properly. On these engine the clearences get tight over time which cause the valves to not close all the way which lowers the compression.

Cold compression will tell you how well your car is going to start in the morning. Hot compression will tell you how smoothly your engine will idle when it's warmed up and will also give you an idea of how much oil blow by you have and how much oil your going to burn. Those are great cold compression numbers. You've got yourself a good engine.

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^x2 475 would be quite the trick, pics are from the "Technical Data" manual.

Attached Thumbnails

   

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83 SD

84 CD

You have set it to the naturally aspirated engine specification.
intakes at 0.004 inch = 0.10 MM.
exhaust to 0.012 inch = 0.30 MM.

Your engine has a turbo.
Mercedes-Benz OM617 engine
http://reference.findtarget.com/search/Mercedes-Benz%20OM617%20engine/

The correct figures are.

COLD adjustment:

Intake 0.10 MM

Exhaust 0.35 MM

Hot adjustment:

Intake 0.15 MM

Exhaust 0.40 MM




.

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Thanks for the catch on the wrong exhaust adjustments and I will change the 0.012 to 0.014.

I'm optimistic with what I've seen so far on the engine. I don't have MB diesel experience, and I wasn't confident that all the noise at idle was typical MB diesel clatter along with some blowby out of the oil cap after the engine warmed up good. The engine smoothed out well at 2000 rpm's. I've been reading a lot on this forum and am wondering if the idle noise could be injector related and therefore have ordered some diesel purge to try.

I hate to mess with the engine too much prior to the repower since it was running in the donor vehicle and if I fubar something it will be a bear to trouble shoot. On the other hand, repairs while its on an engine stand are infinately more pleasant. With that in mind, would you reccommend any other pre-transplant work? Possibly valve stem seals to address the blowby or could the out of adjustment valves have been the source of that?