A journey into the the infamous Om642 oil cooler leak!
 

Little info about this car
A 2008 E320 Bluetec with the 3.0L v6 Turbodiesel, OCI 10k miles using mobil 1 ESP 5w40 beginning ownership at 104k miles 2 years ago, now its at 127k miles with the most recent service fuel filter and oil and oil filter change at 126k miles...

It all started out with this an oil leak on the garage with at that time i didnt know its origin of leak and it appears to happened acutely at 127k miles, so i dropped the massive acoustic over under the car, now previsouly my undercarriage was spotless when i did my transmission fluid change at 110k miles and also did other several service that required the acoustic cover to be removed well not so much this time there was A TON of oil that has splattered everywhere in under carriage its almost like my W126 1984 300SD I had!! So i begin to trace it.

http://i.imgur.com/DlHnpaFl.jpg


And all finger points to this hole! Here you can actually see it flowing out at an alarming rate as the car was running! My approximation is 1/8 of a cup per min. A little search later and i concluded OIL COOLER LEAK!
http://i.imgur.com/firPWS4l.jpg

Sigh...i kinda knew that was going to happen one day. Now the oil cooler is located in between the middle V of the engine so what you see has that is stacked on top of if has to come out, that means air box, turbo, intercooler pipes, intake side of the intercooler pipes some fuel rails and its lines, fuel filter, swirl flap motor ect ect, :mad::mad::mad: WHERE DO I BEGIN I KEPT ASKING MY SELF, WHERE DO I BEGIN!!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/GAxBpssl.jpg

Day 1
Where do i begin!

Bought a few special sockets, well no so speical they're star scokets (ie 6 point socket) I reccomend that you do not buy harbor freight tool star sockets (Left) it will not sit properly on the bolt because of the shallow grove and will most likely strip, suggestion Lisle Star socket set (Right), they're sit perfectly flush on the bolt (see pick below), and do not use air tools, you'll run the risk of striping the damn bolt if you do so especially the exhaust bolts ill explain in a min!

http://i.imgur.com/JrtAXnal.jpg

Air box, coolant drained upper radiator hose, intercooler pipes, and the bat wing is removed, looking good so far!

http://i.imgur.com/qe6T7gNl.jpg

The DREADED EGR, so this little thing sends some of your exhaust mobojumbo gases into your intake reburning, while its good for the environment they totally neglected the engines health, more to come i suppose,
http://i.imgur.com/hyC3ppZl.jpg

The weird looking triangle and the larger round on the left is the intake manifold There has to be 1/4 inch of crud in there, no doubt how terrible must the entire intake manifold will look like, now the smaller round thing that is at the bottom of the picture is the Exhaust gas cooler that thing is in ever worst condition, that thing connects to the pipe shown in the above picture,
http://i.imgur.com/ac6r0sGl.jpg

End of day one!

Day 2 and 3
Penetration fluid Soak day!

Turbo removal, now this was rather interesting it was my first time removing an turbo charger, now using common knowledge these bolts has been sitting on the exhaust manifold for 7+ years in extreme heat and cold cycles so the bolts are going to be very grumpy to remove so i let them sit in some penetration fluid for a couple of days! No pictures of this process :(

Day 4
Operation turboectomy!

Turbo removal judgement day. Using a E12 socket, 2 foot, 1/2 in drive breaker bar and gave it a nudge they came out like BUTTER dispite been in a 30*F garage and not using a torch to heat them up not bad, but the 2 bolts on the EGR pipe (E10 socket size) that bugger almost stripped on me but it came out successfully just very mauled up! oh as for air tools Do not use them these bolts are angled at an odd angle and one slip from the air tools and you can strip all the splines on the bolt!

Heres the turbo all plugged up with napkins its upside down by the way.
http://i.imgur.com/5259nMYl.jpg

Now the instruction on the Mercedes repair manual says to remove 2 bolts (you can see them) on the Y exhaust, instead of the 2 bolts on the silver bracket (see 2 holes on the silver bracket), did they purposely trying to make it more difficult to remove because at that angle and limited work space theirs no possibly way to remove that 2 bolts that has been heat and cold cycled for 7+ years no dobut that thing is stuck in there for good! Anyways take out the 2 bolts on the bolts on the bracket it will save you from head aches and hassles!
http://i.imgur.com/9nFsipul.jpg

And here is what the turbo was sitting on, a pedestal, which feeds oil to the turbo
http://i.imgur.com/TqR2K2El.jpg

Top part of the turbo oil feed pedestal
http://i.imgur.com/9IHOH3Al.jpg

Tada turbo removed!
http://i.imgur.com/k6Mk7tWl.jpg

End of Day 4

Day 5
A Fight with wire harness, fuel lines and rails

Title says it all, i spend all day fighting with the terrible placed wire harness it just intrudes vision, work space to remove the intake manifold, and its intertwined with the damn fuel rails and its high pressure metal lines, i was forced to remove one of the rails so the lines will clear, only to find out that the plastic L shaped casing can be removed and the wires will give way, however the good news is my swirl flap can be opened and closed smoothly, and that the swirl flap motor removed relatively easy w/o breaking, i head horror stories that some has broke the motor & its linkages and even the swirl flap linkages which are made with very flimsy and brittle plastic! here where im at now at 0400 am 1/4/15, i got to say engine is starting to look pretty small, next up removal of the intake manifold and its going to be highs of 22*F oh the joy!

http://i.imgur.com/t6i4j1Ml.jpg




A fun quiz name all the item that you see in this picture
http://i.imgur.com/N885JTDl.jpg

End of Day 5!

I'm interested in seeing the pictures - they don't show up on my screen. I'm guessing you've got an off site hosting place that is blocking them => change of settings?

I'm interested in seeing the pics too.

I've been in one of these as far as replacing the swirl flap motor.

The way he has all this stuff loaded by day, I'm guessing he is using a word processor for the thread, and he just dumped the info on each post. I think he plans to host the images later.

Wow didnt know that the images didnt appear! I was appearing fine on my computer till i checked my phone and it was blank, so I changed my imaging host's is should come up anytime soon! Sorry about that :P

As far as Day 6 i dont think ill be doing anything today, its 14*F outside and with the windchill of 0*F at 40 mph my garage says its 15*F w/ the space heater on for 2 hrs, later i when into the garage for 15 mins and rearrange and pick up some tools and my hand when numb! tomorrow it will be a nicer 36*F and with that space heater it will be a comfortable 45*F

Thanks for correcting the pics.

Well, since nobody else has said it... OMFG! (!!!:eek:!!!)

Is there a German idiom to express "Rube Goldberg-esque-ness"? Apparently his grandson is working in the MBZ emissions engineering department now.

I've got to tell you that for many years there was a Saturn-V rocket engine on display in front of Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, CA. That was as complex as a stone arrowhead compared to that freakin' V-6.

Actros617, I have to give you a LOT of credit for two things that I've seemingly lost in recent years: ambition and patience. I think I've also now lost any desire for a post-CDI diesel too.

Keep up the good work and please keep us in the loop...

I uploaded the pics to the pelican server to preserve them

X 2
 

RunningTooHot's the spokesperson for sanity!

Indeed and here I was thinking that the M120 was crammed into the W201 chassis.

I'm so not buying any new cars if I can help it.

This job is a piece of cake takes about 5 hours if you replace the intake port shutoff motor too.

Sounds like you need a bigger garage heater or some insulation! :)

Nice Pics....other than the voyage of parts to get to things, looks pretty straight forward. Doesn't look any worse than my voyage through the M116 V8 in my 420SEL last summer. :eek: I had every last piece in the "V" removed...all fuel and intake components...same deal...like a huge puzzle...all to reach and replace the rubber grommets on the intake that were hard as a rock and leaking vacuum.