Turbo Trouble - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

patterson · #1 09-29-2002, 12:53 AM

Just when you think you have all of the bugs worked out something else goes wrong.

I had driven my 300D about 400 miles away from home to visit some friends. The car behaved wonderfully on the trip out. I check my oil at every fuel stop which is considered odd by most people these days. I was suprised to find that after only 400 miles it was showing at the add mark on the dipstick. The car had been using about a quart of oil every 1500 miles or so which did not worry me, the motor has 370,000 miles on it. I topped off the oil and headed on a little concerned.

After my visit was over I got in the car to head back home and it started great and sounded great as usual, but when I got on the fuel to accelerate at the first stop light I saw a huge cloud of white/blue smoke in the rear view mirror. I mean a HUGE cloud I could not see the cars behind me. Many thoughts were going through my mind as to what might have caused this. I was planning on pulling it off the road to get it towed or something but the smoking ceased and it was running fine so I decided to take a chance and limp home about 400 miles away in it.

I stopped about every hundred miles to check the oil and it was staying pretty steady. So I made it all 400 miles without a problem and only consumed 3 quarts of oil. It wouldn't smoke at highway speeds very much but would smoke if I stopped and go back on the interstate.

I got back home too late to start troubleshooting my problem that night so I started the next morning trying to figure out what is wrong with my car. I started it up and took it for a spin to the end of my road and I got the same huge cloud of smoke and it certainly was oil smoke. I put my finger in the exhaust pipe and it come out with pure black diesel oil on it, so automatically I think a bad turbo. But everyone says that these turbos don't go bad. So I pulled the turbo off and sure enough no oil in the exhaust manifold but plenty on the turbo outlet. By feeling of the radial play the turbo has way too much slack in the bearings. So I have a worn out turbo.

I go to a local salvage yard that I know well and they sell me a used turbo for $100. I figured I would try it you can't go wrong for that price the core is probably higher than that. The used turbo turned smoothly and the bearings felt tight so I took a chance. I installed the turbo and it works perfectly cured all my problems. I am curious now to find out how my oil consumption will be. The used turbo came off of a 1985 300D and it had a safety valve built into the front of the turbo. I ended up making another trip to the junk yard to get the air filter housing off of the junk car because my 1983 housing hit the blow-off valve device on the 1985 turbo. But all ended well.

Just wondering:

Have any of you had turbo problems?

I guess anything will wear out if you use it enough.

CHAPP · #2 09-29-2002, 08:51 AM

I too had the same problem and had to replace my turbo. It was real bad...people in other cars would back off. I had some time to shop(extra car) and found prices from $1000 for a new one (Garrett) to $200 for a used. United Diesel in springfield va. is a place I have used for 20 years for IP pumps and injectors and the owner told me that buying a used turbo "was like buying used food". He sold me a reman from Garrett for around $600 with tax, and was the same part # I had on my car. He will ship to you also, if this tubo doesn't hold up...but it sounds like you might have gotten lucky. Good Luck.

kerry · #3 09-29-2002, 09:59 AM

I looked at a 84TD a few weeks ago. I was considering buying it and it had complete records. It had its turbo replaced with a used one by Stuart Ritter at less than 200k. It was doing the same thing yours was. I think the price for the used turbo was around $300. If Ritter puts in used turbos it must be a reasonable course of action in some cases. It probably depends on the known history of the used turbo.

psfred · #4 09-29-2002, 11:53 AM

He he, at least you still HAD a turbo -- the one on the Volvo wasn't working well when I got it -- I didn't know they were supposed to be noisy!-- and it finally locked up on a trip. Very frightening when the car suddenly looses so much performance.....!

Anyway, I had a cartridge put in mine (essentially all the guts -- turbine, impeller, shaft and bearing) -- you can get them for about $350 or so, maybe less, and all you have to do is bolt the end housings on. This, of course, will not fix a worn out wastegate regulator, etc.

Cost of above work was $700 at the local injection service, they did it fast for me because I was going on a trip. I paid extra for overnight shipping on the parts.

I still have excessive oil consumption -- a quart in 1000 miles, all up the intake -- but at 219,000 miles, I guess I cannot complain. Besides, it hasn't changed in 60,000 miles and six years....!

Peter

patterson · #5 09-29-2002, 02:44 PM

I was lucky that I didn't lose boost.

On another story I had a 1994 Chevy 6.5 Turbo Diesel (pile of junk) that I was pulling a travel trailer with and all of a sudden lost all of its power and started smoking. It was so weak that I had to unhook from the trailer and drive it to the closest dealer. That thing had a vacuum pump whose only purpose was to hold the wastegate on the turbo shut! They have a complex system of vacuum switches and stuff and a vacuum operated wastegate. So when you lose vacuum the wastegate opens venting all the exhaust around the turbo. A horrible idea from GM.

The turbo on my Isuzu mini truck went out in much the same was as the Mercedes did but over a long enough period of time to make you think that the engine was getting tired ans starting to use oil from age. It got to where the turbo was as loud as a semi truck before I got it fixed and by then the impeller had hit the housing and screwed up all sorts of things. I sent that one off to Majestic Turbo and had it rebuilt. They did a great job on it. They sent a little letter with the turbo called how to make the turbo last longer. It said to change the oil every 2,500 miles, start the vehicle and wait 2 minutes before taking off or reving the engine, and let it cool off for five minutes before shutting the engine off. I figure the first turbo lasted 300,000 miles so I would put one on in another 300,000 rather than waste 7 minutes of idling every time I drove my truck. I could understand 30 seconds or so but 5 minutes is a little bit much I think.

I am biased against getting any wear part out of a junk yard unless you get it at core price. Many salvage yards think that new parts are worth half the price of new parts, but there is no way I would pay that for a wear part such as an engine or turbo.

The time factor is the biggest reason I went with used. I wanted the car for a trip this week and I really didn't want to take my other car because it is going to be in the mountains. The little 50 horsepower Isuzu hates mountains. Time will tell whether the used unit will be OK or not. I am considering going ahead and sending the one I took off to be rebuilt so I have a spare, but I haven't decided yet.

Peter, arent the Volvo TD's in the cars based somewhat on the VW Rabbit engines. I looked at one some time back and I thought that it looked like a copy of it. Are they aluminum head, timing belt engines? There is nothing wrong with timing belts as long as they are not neglected, but so many are neglected.

Well one more Mercedes problem patched up, what will come next?

psfred · #6 09-29-2002, 03:56 PM

Yup, the Volvo TD is the big brother to the Rabbit and Audi 5000 turbos. Nice little engine, about the same power as the 300D 603 (given that the Volvo plant is a 2.4L).

Rubber belt for valves AND IP, mind you (the one on the Rabbit is on the front, the Volvo has another belt on the back).

Other than setting the injection timing, nice engines. Tend to run about 300,000 miles before giving trouble from low compression, but noisy -- semi-direct injection, loud turbo.

The engine was built in 4, 5, and six cylinder versions.

General Motors has built the most amazing collection of junk over the years. My brother quit them (he worked for Huges Aircraft) because of the congitive dissonance in the engineering department. Weird ideas by people without credentials seem to get put into practice more often than they should, and defective basic engineering is "fixed" by working around the fault.

Funny, all sorts of "strange" approaches are in use in other companies (for instance, that odd V6/V8 VW Audi is making with a single cylinder head and canted piston tops), but everyone else seems to make them work. GM just builds very weird designs that are basically strange, and poorly made to boot.

I don't understand -- after all, my Benz and my brother's Buick are within a few percent of the same dimensions and weight, so that the must have the same materials in them, but if you jack up one corner of the Buick, you cannot open and close the doors. No problem on the Benz, go figure. Has to be the design, and all the work has to be done for a bad one, too! They are both made up from sheet metal stampings spot welded together, has to be design work.....

Oh well, I suppose that is why Japanese and European cars sell so well!

Peter

Peter

Palangi · #7 09-29-2002, 03:57 PM

Proud to see that Isuzu TD still running good. Mine only has half that many miles. These things are getting kinda scarce in the last few years.

patterson · #8 09-29-2002, 11:28 PM

The Isuzu Diesels are just about bulletproof in light vehicle application. The Isuzu TD pickup has been the best vehicle I could ever ask for. It is peppy, has a good A/C and it just keeps on going. I would love to have anew one just like it. Isuzu still makes that engine for commercial applications albeit without the turbo. It is a heavy built all iron pushrod engine with oil cooled pistons. The turbo pickups have 80 horsepower compared to 58 for the non-turbo pickups. The turbo pickups are getting extremely rare and the people that have them will not sell them unless they are extremely ragged out.

Peter, I had an old Rabbit Diesel. It was my first Diesel actually. I never was happy with the power it had to offer eventhough it was in an extremely light car. The mileage is outstanding though, I never dropped below 45 mpg with it. I never found anyone besides the dealer that would adjust my valves and at the time the kit to do it yourself was expensive. I guess this lead to it needing a valve job at 150,000 miles. I pulled the head and took it to my machine shop to find out that the head was warped beyond specs and they can't be milled so I had to pop for a new head. The rabbit diesels are swirl prechamber diesels which I assume the Volvo TD's are also. This is louder than the Mercedes prechamber design but it seems to be more efficient. All Japanese diesels I have dealt with use the swirl prechamber design as the VW. Oddly enough the GM and Ford in-direct injection diesels also use the swirl prechamber setup. The swirl prechamber is also referred as the Ricardo V prechamber. In my experience so far Mercedes's design is unique to Mercedes.

Well I got the Rabbit going again and sold it. I said then that I would not own another aluminum head diesel, but I might have to eat my words or keep on driving obsolete vehicles. From an engineering perspective the only advantage to using aluminum is weight. The drawbacks are numerous especially when mated to an iron engine. Aluminum expands approximately twice as much as iron when heated so this makes the head move on the block which leads to many head gasket and bolt problems.

As far as trucks I love the ride and drive of a Chevy truck. My 6.5 Turbo Diesel attracted me because at the time it was the most powerful diesel on the market (by their factory ratings) and was about 2,000 less of a diesel premium than ford and dodge. The truck ran great, had acceptable performance, and was much quieter than the competition. But it was a pile of junk. Injection system problems galore along with the vacuum/turbo issues. So I got tired of sitting beside the road in a new truck and sold it at a loss. I replaced it with my F-250 with the International 7.3 Diesel. Good truck but it just is not pleasant to drive or ride therefore I usually opt the little turbo Isuzu over it. Keeps the mileage low but who cares about that. I will have to drive it if I ever wear the Isuzu out, but I might not live that long.

Peter what mileage do you get out of the Volvo TD? I know it is not as good as a rabbit, but does it do better than your Mercedes?

#9 09-29-2002, 11:53 PM

What a relieving story patterson! I am glad you posted this. I was wondering what most people did when the turbo goes up. $100-200 ain't so bad at all!

psfred · #10 09-30-2002, 12:05 AM

The Volvo in good trim gets 29 in town and 31-32 on the highway, the same as the 87 300D. Less power, though!

Right now, I'm at about 25 mpg, AC eats tons of power on this car, probably a dying compressor (I've been fighting it for years now). I still need to re-set the injection timing, it's still late. A real pain, believe me!

The Rabbit was seriously underpowered, needed a turbo. Ran forever, though.

I'd never ever expect an aluminum head on a diesel to be worth anything after 150,000 miles -- no way it won't be warped. Kinda expensive, but worth it for the greater power and better cooling. Some do better than others, and the Audi/VW engine was an early one. Probably not so bad now. My sister cooked the head on her gas Volvo last summer, but I'm not sure if the head let go first or the hose nipple on the rad. There were pockets of corrosion almost through the seal area around two cylinders, so it could have blown and then blown the rad. Typical, expect a head gasket at 160,000 miles or so on any aluminum head/cast iron block.

Of course, you could use the MB approach -- aluminum block with silica "liners" with an aluminum head. Very slick. Don't know if a deisel would stay together or not, though.

I'm not excited about any US diesel engine, although I have heard that the new Cummins is FINALLY using a prechamber design along with variable injection timing. See my old posts for rants about fixed injection timing constant speed engines in variable speed applications.....!

Peter

patterson · #11 09-30-2002, 07:04 PM

How are you setting the IP timing on the Volvo? I had the correct tool to do it with on the VE pump which I guess the Volvos have if they are like the VW's and most other small foreign diesels but I lost it somewhere or lent it out and it never found its way back. I would like to have another but I have found that setting the timing by ear works great for me. If you are used to the typical engine noise you can get it close enough just by setting the pump to where it sounds right. Not scientific but works good.

I know that the Rabbit was an early example of aluminum head diesels and they have probably improved the design greatly by now. But, I can not forget the outrageous price I had to pay for a new head on that darn Rabbit, even when the car was running correctly it was just a step above walking.

I am optimistic about the future of US Diesels. In the Diesel Progress magazine a couple months back they had an article about the Ford Focus Diesel. I know they aren't sold here but it is still an American Diesel. It was intercooled, common rail direct injected and according to the article extremely peppy while still achieving great mileage. I think it would sell enough to be profitable maybe not in extremely large numbers but well enough to sell it here. Detroit Diesel's (owned by Daimler Chrysler now but I still consider American) DELTA engines show great promise for automotive applications, but I guess only Europe will see them.

The Mercedes silicon linered aluminum engines seem to do good, I know of people getting high mileages out of them but I can't help but think "throw away engine," which is what they are. I would imagine they are extremely difficult to rebuild and get as good as they came from the factory.

psfred · #12 09-30-2002, 07:53 PM

Actually, the aluminun MB V8s can be bored, honed, and then coated with the proper equipment. Hans has only done one, and that one was driven until the engine locked up from overheating.

What will drive you nuts with them is that the head bolts sieze in the block unless someone else has put inserts in -- later blocks come that way, but ealier ones have to be done at the shop, and the cam tower bolts are angled.... you can guess what the jig costs!

I set the timing with an adapter, but I found later that the dial indicator extension was unscrewing. Sorta complicated everything. I'm sure it's too late as I have low power, too much smoke at throttle, and limited revs -- sorta runs out of juice at 4000 rpm and smokes like crazy. Same as it did when the IP was screwed up by previous service (cold start was stuck on, parts missing, etc.). I'm just going to rotate it some and try, without undoing the basic timing -- one has to lock the pump, unbolt the rear cam cog, then rotate to get the correct setting on the dial indicator, then manage to re-tighten the bolt without moving anything --- I get it as close as I can then rotate the pump as necessary.

Peter

Palangi · #13 09-30-2002, 09:22 PM

What oil filters do you use in the Isuzu TD? OEM filters are $25. Fram is $20. I was using Deutch filters from Autozone, but they stopped carrying them. Poop Boys has Purolator, but they are made in India and appear to be junk. I stocked up on Deutch, but my supply is running low.

Any problems with the weak firewall at the clutch adjustment area? I had to re-inforce this one with steel plates.

Also, FYI, I have a factory manual on this P'up in case you need anything scanned.

patterson · #14 09-30-2002, 09:53 PM

I was aware that they can be bored and honed and then re-siliconized, but I emphasize can. I don't believe that many owners are going to pay the cost when rebuild time comes. It just isn't something that is feasible to be done by an average engine shop. The 300SE (M189) engine was aluminum block with angled top cylinder liners, they were replaceable but no one ever did. I hate aluminum heads and engines, but I am the minority in the engineering field.

I have used Puralator L34002 filters on my Isuzu TD for years with no ill effects. They cost around $5 a piece at Advance Auto. I started out with OEM only but the price went up a couple years ago and I quit. Unfortunately it seems Isuzu is trying to forget the diesels. Every year the price on the consumable items goes from expensive to a little more expensive. The aftermarket parts are beginning to be discontinued also.

I too have had problems with the firewall clutch cable area. My problem was caused by a bindind clutch cable. I made a plate to hold the cable from coming through. It has worked well so far.

Enjoy you Isuzu they are wonderful vehicles that will last you forever if you can find parts. I have the Isuzu service manual. It is about 4 inches thick and by far the most detailed factory manual I have ever seen. Oh Just wonderding does yours have that annoying noise in the transmission when you let out the clutch in neutral. Both of my Isuzu diesels have it and have since they were new. The dealer called it gear roll over noise and it was inherent with the transmission, but I have seen some that didn't have the noise but I got stuck with two that had it.

Palangi · #15 09-30-2002, 10:05 PM

No unusual transmission noises on this one. Book calls for 5w30 engine oil in the tranny but I went to 10w40 a couple years ago since it's usually pretty hot down here.