Is it possible or wise to run a OM616 without the transmission attached? I'm waiting on my flywheel to be balanced to the flex disk and I want to verify it is in balance to the crank before I install the transmission.

You can run the engine without the transmission. With the flywheel attached. I'm a bit uncertain of what you mean by balancing the flywheel to the flex disk. Are you replacing the flywheel or just the flex?

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General George - 1967 Land Rover 2a SWB 1983 OM617 Turbo

I've done it on a test stand with no issues. If you don't have the radiator hooked up and the oil cooler hooked up you could have some issues.

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If you still have that tranny jack, put something soft on it, like cardboard and support the end of the motor where the transmission attached ,since it will be hanging from the two mounts and putting a lot of pressure on the attachments up front like radiator hoses and vac line ect. Especially if you start it, you want that 3rd support, even if its really crude and temporary

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I'm converting the car from a automatic to a manual transmission.

No I had to return it since there is a 6.9 that needed its transmission installed

Currently I have one bottle jack under the oil pan and another under the engine adapter. It will only be running for a minute just to make sure it doesn't have a case of the shakes with the new flywheel

It should work fine. Remember that if it does shake you can have your local industrial balance guy come over and balance it in place. Pretty much every large town will have someone who does this work as it's needed for any machine that runs at higher RPMs, including high speed presses, etc. So all is not lost if the system needs a balance correction.

Dan

With all respect, the normal torsional variations in crankshaft speed of a four-cylinder engine at low speed will be of so much greater magnitude than the potential flywheel imbalance forces, that any actual flywheel imbalance will be undetectable without instrumentation.

I was thinking the same thing, but if the flywheel gets balanced as the one that get's replaced things should be fine. And if the OP has the time and willingness to go through the extra step i say more power to him.

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General George - 1967 Land Rover 2a SWB 1983 OM617 Turbo

My plan on the S-10 with a 617/4 speed swap is to fire it up and see how it behaves. If it shakes I'll get an appointment with our local balance shop and get the job done. Otherwise, it's born to boogie.

My understanding is that some 617's are internally balanced and some are externally balanced and pretty much all 240D's are internally balanced so I have a pretty good chance of being OK. If not, there's a fix for it.

Dan

I am having the auto flywheel matched to the manual flywheel. I was just going to try to start the engine after to verify it is right but if it won't be noticible I will skip it.

Can you run the motor without the trans? Yes, I did the it the other day on a car.

Is it going to show you anything? Probably not.

If anything since your third point will be hard metal (jack) it may vibrate a bit more and rattle and make you think you've created a problem that doesn't really exist.

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I may be wrong, but if it's been matched then I see this step as totally unnecessary. Most of the flywheels are neutral balanced, every now and then you'll find on that's not. I think the flex discs are always neutral balanced (plus there really isn't that much mass on them to begin with, and least not compared with the flywheel).

If you've confirmed they are both neutral, just go with it...that's what I did, and mine runs GREAT.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.