Hi all, I'm new to this forum but I wanted to post a thread to hopefully help me and others. I have been digging for days to try to find a solution but have not been successful.

Long story short I just completed (almost) a OM617 swap into my 99 jeep cherokee. I ran into some issues that are really strange. I started with a motor with 145,xxx miles. great compression, etc. swapped it into my jeep, timed and installed my dieselmeken 7.5mm pump and it fired right up. About two minutes into idiling the motor came to an abrupt halt. Upon inspection the motor had locked up. I pulled the pan and pulled a few main bearing caps as the rods looked fine. The third main bearing from the back of the block had locked up. It marred the crank and ruined the bearing. No good.

I got another engine with about 200k on it. First thing I did was check the chain stretch. I came up with 3-4 degrees of stretch at the most. We fired this motor up with the stock pump, let it run, and it sounded awesome. I immediately swapped this motor into my cherokee with the dieselmeken pump instead of stock. We bled the lines and this new motor fired up and idled for about 10 minutes. Then it shut down. I have been unable to start this motor since. Doesn't matter what timing I set the pump at, it will not fire. I have a new starter, battery, wires, grounds. If I disconnect the fuel lines at injectors it cranks perfectly. If I bleed the lines, hit the glow plugs, and try to fire it cranks really slow like it's dumping liquid diesel into the cylinders and it can't overcome the compression.


I'm kind of at a loss at this point because this thing has me stumped. Here's my timing procedure I've been using: the dieselmeken pump instruction card tells me 22* BTDC. I rotate the crank clockwise until I see the correct degree. I pop the oil fill cap, make sure the cam lobes are pointing upwards. They are. I aligned the large slot on the dieselmeken pump with the punched mark on the housing, put the collar on the splines, slide into motor making sure to not bump the sprocket. I tightened the bolts and used my lift pump in my tank to prime the fuel system. I used my drip funnel attached to cylinder one injector fitting on pump (pulled out spring and delivery valve first) and adjusted the pump to drip one drop per second-ish. I feel like I followed the manual to a "T".

Does anyone have similar experiences like this? The whole situation is weird as I had both motors running with the dieselmeken pump but now have been unsuccessful to this point. Glow plugs all glow (I checked), injectors have been pop tested, etc. I don't know what else to check other than possibly install the stock pump just to try it. I'd love some input.

If you have ideas let me know. I know some of you on here are whizzes with these motors and your wisdom and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

-Jared

What size battery are you using?

__________________
2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

This is just a theory on my part, but I wonder if the Dieselmeken pump is bad and dumping fuel into the crankcase, which then fills up into the head and comes in through the valves and hydrolocks the cylinders.

This happened on my roommate's 1991 W126 350SDL after doing a diesel purge. It cleaned out coagulated vegetable oil from the injection pump and what was left were badly worn and scored walls and pistons which dumped fuel into the crankcase to the point of stopping the engine.

Or, the Dieselmeken pump might also have something wrong with one of the pump elements, so it may be stuck open and constantly pouring in fuel to one cylinder when running.

I'm guessing there is an issue with the injection pump. They are a reputable company, but mistakes happen. This is just my guess based on a similar experience.

As for the crankcase filling up with fuel due to a bad injection pump theory, you could confirm this by checking the dipstick tube and finding it near overflowing, or draining out way too much thinned down engine oil that smells like fuel.

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1967 W110 Universal Wagon, Euro, Turbo Diesel, Tail Fins, 4 Speed Manual Column Shift, A/C
1980 W116 300SD Turbo Diesel, DB479 Walnut Brown, Sunroof, Highly Optioned, 350,000+ Miles

I don't have any experience with the dieselmeken pump (what is it?).

It sounds like the problem might be related to it. If an injector is not holding you might be filling your cylinders with fuel enough to create a hydrolock or partial hydrolock.

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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.

I am running an advance auto battery. 800 cold cranking amps, 1000 max cranking amps. I also have a new high torque starter. I also just replaced all wires (grounds and hots) with new 2 gauge wire just for good measure.

Do you know if any threads pointing to how to confirm the theory that it is the pump? Are there any ways to bench test the pump to find out if it is just dumping fuel into cylinders? I've thought about pulling one line at a time off the injector on the motor, hooking up one of the other injectors I own and cranking the motor. Check each line output and see if there is one that is constantly supplying fuel.

On the 2nd engine, did it shut off clean or did it smoke / run away? When a diesel is cranking, it is at max fuel ( Governor is at zero RPM so the rack is at full stroke ). Some engines ( usually industrial that have a low operating max limit. ) have a cold start lever that increases cranking fuel even more.


Can you rotate the engine by hand easily?

What are you using for an oil filter / housing / cooler?

Have you pulled the glow plugs and tried to crank? This would determine if there is a near hydralock condition.

In the condition when it's hard to crank, it is also "harder" to turn over by hand. It never stops turning over, just cranks slower/harder. As for the cooler it is omitted. The oil filter is a remote housing kit from Mercedes diesel 4x4. Oil pressure is great and it idled cold around 80 psi. When cranking it even climbs to 80 psi. I've had the glow plugs and injectors out. Glow plugs all glow red hot when switch is on.

The second motor shut off as if I pulled the stop switch. It just "fell on its face". Just like any diesel when you kill the fuel to the engine. It smoked a lot when cranking but smoked a lot less when it fired up. Nothing seemed different than any of my other Diesel engines I've run in other applications.

I just pulled the valve cover and checked and I'm actually at 5* chain stretch. I wouldn't have thought that's enough to do this but maybe it is? I pulled all five injectors. Cylinders 2,3,5 have a ton of fuel and grime in the prechambers. I'm gonna clean the prechambers out and crank the motor a little without the injectors and see what comes out.

To add to the above comment. These injectors are tested and in perfect working order. Spray pattern and pop tests have been completed by the shop I bought them off of.

I would send Dieselmeken a message. The owner is a stand up guy and a frequent contributor over at STD who treats his customers right. He may be able to help you rule out the pump.

__________________
2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

I sent an email through his site. I'm waiting for my approval on the STD forum. Im not sure what tools I can use there until they approve me. I'm new to the scene here but the cherokee is 99% finished. Just need to get it running lol. I'll get a build thread up soon. I own a company manufacturing steel targets for LEO, Military and civilian applications so we have CNC equipment and lots of fabrication tools that made this swap possible. It also looks good and looks almost factory at this point which is a bonus

Where are you picking up the oil pressure signal? My concern that with an altered oil filter housing, you don't have any oil going to the bearings. RE: The first motor burned down a rod bearing and locked up at idle. The only time a bearing grabs the crank is when there isn't oil flow.

Glow plug operation won't affect cranking speed.

You have a global problem, even if you lost 2 cylinders the engine should still run.

How about putting the original injection pump back and trying?

What are you using for a transmission?

Original motor locked up due to crap luck. It looks like some metal came from inside the motor and got into the bearing. It didnt spin the bearing, just ground the motor to a halt.

I know it has gobs of oil pressure. A line had a pin hole on the return side of the filter housing and it sprayed oil like mad across the room. That is the line headed into the block after the filter. All is well there.

So for tonight what I did was pull the injectors. What I found was lots of gunk in the prechambers. I cleaned that all up and cycled the motor with the injectors out. I installed new heat shields and torqued the injectors down to spec. Then I moved to the timing relationship of the cam to the crank. I took time and checked twice. This motor is actually 5 degrees off due to chain stretch. That being said I will be purchasing an offset key. I still don’t think this would cause it to not crank or start.

After the timing I checked every valve. Here is where it got interesting. Every valve was notably out of spec. I took about an hour and adjusted all the valves to spec. I spun it over by hand and everything feels great.

I then adjusted the motor to 22 degrees BTDC, pulled the pump, retired the pump to the notch in the sprocket and reinstalled. I primed the pump and all the lines with my tank lift pump and began my drip test. I drip tested and adjusted the pump slightly towards the block to get 1 drip per second.

I then bled the injector lines at the injectors, cranked it till they spit fuel, tightened them, hit the glow plugs and gave it a crank. The motor ALMOST fired immediately. I smelled smoke, looked at my starter and the wires from the solenoid to the starter were melted. I pulled it all apart, greased and cleaned the entire starter components but its fried. I just ordered a 250 ft/lb starter so I will give it a whirl once that shows up.

Long story short, The pump is 100% timed correctly now, the valves are in spec, and the prechambers are squeaky clean. I expect that it will fire once I get that new starter.

Side note this is the second Autozone starter I have burned up only shortly after buying them.

Hey Jared, that's my old motor!

I set those valves myself (6 years ago) I didn't think to recheck them since I only put maybe 1/2hr on the engine. Were they tight or loose?

What was on the prechambers? Half burned fuel mixed with soot from me turning it over?

I really did clean it all with a toothbrush when it was apart. I"ll try and find the photos on my old hard drive. My OM617 Build

Autozoo employees only care if you return a start with hammer marks. Their rebuilds are all kinda a gamble anyway. Any starter rebuild shops up there? The old timers will know what to swap in for more power.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

I know it's an obvious question, but did you take the fuel pump out of the stock tank, along with the Chrysler inline fuel filter?

5* is correct, I found my old thread: Chain Stretch-Which key do I need?

I put my new timing chain in a coffee can with oil, set it on the bench, and it disappeared.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment