I tore up a few motors in my day racing when i was a kid, lots of times i didn't see the carnage until i dropped the pan :/

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"NEW" 1984 300D TD needs some love

fair enough, i guess the dipstick tube check wasn't a good substitute for dropping the pan. presuming i do so tomorrow and find the aforementioned carnage, i guess i'm buying either a partial rebuild or another engine and replacement. how exciting!

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'77 240D, 504H, OM617.952, etc.

Well not necessarily - it's not over till the fat lady sings.

Keep calm carry on =>

Remove lower oil pan and take a peek

If you can't see anything wrong there then I say it is time to turn the engine over by hand.

Question (from the later comer) => This is a manual transmission conversion right?

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

OK, OK, got the car on stands, drained the oil, dropped the skid plate, and removed the oil pan. it's clean, no visible debris. the oil pump chain also looks fine. did i imagine the whole thing?


also loosened the injector lines and (once i remembered to take the transmission out of gear - yes Stretch, turbo+manual) turned the motor over by hand from the crankshaft. this also seemed OK (with some whooshing cause i was still fighting compression, maybe the whole injectors have to come out, not just the hard lines, to avoid this?)


well, hmm.

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'77 240D, 504H, OM617.952, etc.

It couldn't have been coming from past the crankshaft? Flywheel, wheel bearings, carrier bearing, CVs, Tranny?

had noise like the engine was ending when flywheel bolts came loose on a car. Of course that was a Vega back in the 70s, but it sounded to my young mind like the engine was coming apart.

One of the old gents that taught me how to wrench diagnosed it immediately and had me fixing it. Luckily back then it was a warm shop and a lift to use.

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Eric, CPO, Submarines, retired.
Here's a sig line...
Mine: '68 Corvette LS1/4L65E, 83 240D, 2000 GMC 4x4, 08 FLSTC Anniv
Hers: '72 Corvette 454/4spd, '99 MB SLK, '93 Metro vert, 78 240D, '92 Silverado, '65 Fjord Rustang, '59 Fjord Fairlane, '17 Slingshot.

I need an air-conditioned shop and a lift

nice ideas. i heard the noise while the car was stopped, so i ruled out axles/bearings. maybe the flywheel, i will look at the bolts. is there anything i can check short of dropping the transmission? that might be too big a job for me to do on the street.

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'77 240D, 504H, OM617.952, etc.

that's interesting, i did find one loose transmission bolt, which at its rear had a little light bracket holding the speedo cable. i guess this was a dumb hack, because there was a broken plastic hanger nearby where maybe it used to be held. that's an easy fix, but i can't believe it was the whole problem here. FWIW the horrible noise varied with engine speed. i'm still thinking piston ring but no proof yet.

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'77 240D, 504H, OM617.952, etc.

So were you able to verify the flywheel is not loose?

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

no, tom, i don't know how to check it. looking in the FSM now.

PS - no hope of checking the flywheel for looseness without dropping the transmission? not sure that i'm up for doing that in the street.

PPS - this had better not be related to the shop putting in my new clutch slave without the plastic spacer.

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'77 240D, 504H, OM617.952, etc.

Of course, any time you remove injectors, you really need new injector
seals, but they're cheap.

Would be cheaper to remove glow plugs instead, but my compression
test kit from harbor freight goes into the injector ports.

What was the noise like? Was it continuous (spinning mass, like flywheel,
chains, front balance pulley) or periodic (reciprocating piston/ring/conrod or valve tappet)

ditto check compression when you pull the glow plugs, pull them all so the motor will not have compression on the ones you are not checking and check them one at a time.

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"NEW" 1984 300D TD needs some love

odd, my harbor freight diesel compression test kit had both injector port and glow plug port fittings. Much nicer to use glow plug ports

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Eric, CPO, Submarines, retired.
Here's a sig line...
Mine: '68 Corvette LS1/4L65E, 83 240D, 2000 GMC 4x4, 08 FLSTC Anniv
Hers: '72 Corvette 454/4spd, '99 MB SLK, '93 Metro vert, 78 240D, '92 Silverado, '65 Fjord Rustang, '59 Fjord Fairlane, '17 Slingshot.

does it have a new throw out bearing?does the clutch pedal feel really tight like it is still pushing on the throw out bearing when your foot is off the peddle? the throwout bearing can make a heck of a racket especially if it's dry.

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"NEW" 1984 300D TD needs some love