Another #14 head bites the dust - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

tjts1 · #1 05-03-2018, 12:37 PM

At 230,000 miles I decided to finally park the 87 300D when the amount of combustion gas escaping into the cooling system got so bad that I could hear the coolant bottle burp every minute at idle. I spent the last few months rebuilding a #17 head, injectors. Then a couple weeks ago I came across a 603.971 engine in the JY from which I took the 55 trim turbo, exhaust manifold and all the related components. Finally this week I rebuilt the 55 trim turbo and pulled the head.

Here's a video of the #14 head immediately after a cold start.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHjF1xyZwhI

Behold the #14 head in all its glory.

cyl 4

cyl 5

cyl 6

tjts1 · #2 05-03-2018, 11:00 PM

More fun comparison pics. 87 W124 and 93 W140 manifolds.

93 W140 55 trim T3

And the 87 50 trim. The weirdest T3 I've ever seen. Still making 13psi every time I drove it.

The 87 turbo is huge by comparison and a real PITA to remove from the car. It was easier to pull the head first.

mbolton1990 · #3 05-03-2018, 11:47 PM

Cool!
Didn't know the factory turbos were 50 trims.. interesting I put a 57 trim on a old Volvo I used to have,man did that car scoot with it... out of curiosity did the later 602 cars get bigger turbos?

tjts1 · #4 05-03-2018, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbolton1990

Cool!
Didn't know the factory turbos were 50 trims.. interesting I put a 57 trim on a old Volvo I used to have,man did that car scoot with it... out of curiosity did the later 602 cars get bigger turbos?

By my measurements the compressor side came out to 56.25 trim but everyone else calls it a 55 trim so I did the same.

I don't think the 602 used any version of the T3 AFIK. There was a later 2.9L version of the 602 but I think those moved on to more modern turbo.

BillGrissom · #5 05-04-2018, 10:10 AM

Good you resolved the problem, and we love photos. Too many times one pulls a head and it is inconclusive.

tjts1 · #6 05-08-2018, 11:53 PM

Today I cleaned the the block, installed the W140 turbo coolant pipe and turbo oil feed line and installed the #17. I bought this head over 5 years ago off ebay knowing full well my #14 would have to be replaced some day. The seller claimed it was in perfect working condition. Only later I realized that it had been run on WVO and it was absolutely filthy. I disassembled it, cleaned the hell out of it, lapped the valves and installed new valve stem seals. Even though its a #17 head the prechambers take straight injectors.

Top is the 87 coolant line that goes into the back of the thermostat housing, bottom is the 93. Each one is designed around its respective exhaust manifold design.

New coolant line and the W140 turbo oil feed line.

New headgasket

And in goes the the head. The only real surprise was that the two allen bolts at the front of the timing cover that came off the #14 head are too short for the #17 head. I guess this must be part of the redesign. I'll have to hit up the hardware. I had 2 sets of used OM603 head bolts so I picked out the best of the bunch. Both sets contained 1 very rusty head bolt from from the #25 position. I don't know why that one rusts.

Maxbumpo · #7 05-11-2018, 08:45 AM

In order to ensure clean oil passages in the head, I rigged a temporary shaft to hold the camshaft sprocket up, and then cranked over the engine with the starter until oil started to flow. Then I used rags to plug the camshaft bearing oil feeds, and installed the hydraulic lifters into each bore after a fair amount of oil had flowed out. Cheap insurance to make sure you don't end up with scoring of the lifter bores or the camshaft bearings.

tjts1 · #8 05-11-2018, 09:56 AM

The head was pretty well cleaned so I'm not worried about scoring anything. If you want oil to flow through the passages, you can open up the small oil port on the back of the head and turn the engine by hand. It will push oil out as soon as you rotate the crank.

Minor update, I had to buy new hardware for the small bolts at the front of the timing cover. The 2 Allen head bolts inside the timing cover from the #14 head were too short by about 20mm in the #17 head. I decided to replace them with regular 6 sided bolts to reduce the likely hood of rounding them off. These were m8 x 50mm x 1.25mm pitch.

The thicker deck of the #17 head also translates to the fuel filter mounted area. This needed m8 x 80mm bolts.

I reused the lifter from the #14 head since these are only 2 years old.

I had 2 om603 cams on hand so I used the one with the least wear.

Bolted it all down and turned the engine by hand a few revolutions.

Hit Man X · #9 05-11-2018, 12:17 PM

Good work.

Reminds me to order that updated timing cover and put the SDL back on the street.

tjts1 · #10 05-12-2018, 09:00 PM

The fuel heater is completely useless to me so I decided to replace it with a regular 1/2" Barb fitting to feed the electric coolant pump.

Also replaced the om603 unservicible fuel check valve with an om617 check valve. I stretched the spring to 27mm.

Finally installed the w140 exhaust manifold and test fit the 55 trim turbo. It needed a some reclocking after the rebuild.

I like this turbo configuration a lot better.

Also installed the prechamber collar nuts and glow plugs. Getting close to the point where I can crank it.

MTUpower · #11 05-12-2018, 09:23 PM

Great work! Do you have prechamber puller? Have you altered the prechambers at all? I did by enlarging them a bit and the results were more power and less exhaust smoke on my 617.

tjts1 · #12 05-12-2018, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUpower

Great work! Do you have prechamber puller? Have you altered the prechambers at all? I did by enlarging them a bit and the results were more power and less exhaust smoke on my 617.

I was going to pull the prechambers to clean out some of the WVO crud from the previous owner of this head but I was able to clean out most of it by just pulling the collar nuts. The head is unusual because it's a #17 (later casting) with straight injectors and prechambers. Somebody put a lot of machine work into making this combination work, I'm not going to mess with success.

tjts1 · #13 05-16-2018, 12:19 AM

Today I installed the turbo, GPs, injectors, fuel lines, valve cover, ran the electric fuel pump for about a minute and gave it a crank. It ran rough, then smoothed out after a few seconds then smoke started shooting out of the 4th intake port, immediately stopped it. I gave the intake valve a close inspection with visions of diassembling the engine again running through my head. Didn't see any problems so I restarted it and it ran smoothly again for another 30 seconds before I turned it off. My guess is some dirt got stuck on the valve seat before getting cleared out. There's no water in the engine yet so I was done running it. I was surprised how quiet the engine is with just the turbo to muffle the noise. Do I really need a muffler on this car?

It should be another week or two (time permitting) before I can drive the car. I need to reassemble the rest of the engine bay, get the exhaust reattached, EGT sensor, intake, radiator, new electric cooling fans installed etc.

After trying to convert to a normal pressure wastegate actuator which turned out to be too short, I reinstalled the vacuum actuator that came with the 55 trim turbo from the W140. I already had a simple electronic boost controller for the old turbo which I can reuse. The controller doesn't care if the actuator works with boost or vacuum.

We had twin diesel boat we sold recently and among the giant pile of parts left over I found a pair of new in box K&N air filters. Turns out the filters are just the right size to fit around the mouth of the turbo.

I'm amazed how much unnecessary crap I was able to eliminate from the engine bay.

Diseasel300 · #14 05-16-2018, 10:22 AM

I had a similar thing happen after I had the head redone on mine. First startup had a bit of smoke from a couple of the intake ports, but quickly went away. I chalked it up to either crap on the valve seats/faces or the valve stems dragging in the guides until they got adequate oil.

Almost all the engine noise when running with an open manifold like you have it is induction noise. With the IM on and the exhaust still open, it won't be much different than with the exhaust on. When I was getting mine running and doing test drives out in the county, I ran it with only the downpipe connected and it really wasn't bad at all. Had some droning, but I'd imagine if it were piped straight out the back you wouldn't notice any difference.

Not sure about that hot-air intake though. No problem with the K&N, but having it right there by the exhaust manifold is less than ideal.

tjts1 · #15 05-17-2018, 08:02 PM

Minor update, I installed more of the W140 exhaust. It won't bolt up to the existing exhaust for various reasons so first trip will be to an exhaust shop for a new downpipe. Also installed the radiator, electric puller fans, EGT sensor hoses etc. Still waiting on a heater hose, a few elbows and PCV and catch can before I can button everything up. The wastegate will be vacuum actuated so I'm working on setting up the control for that.

I drilled a hole for the EGT sensor into the EGR block off plate. The W124 and W140 exhausts are completely different so an exhaust shop will have to sort that out for me.