A-yup. Atmo means atmospheric induction. Turbo means turbosupercharged forced induction. NA means naturally aspirated, but it also means North America, Not Available, blah blah. Atmo seems to stick with a lot of automotive journalists, and there's no confusing it with North America

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Thx/Reno
An American in France
88 300TD 5spd Sportline (lowered factory susp) - totalled by a flying deer
89 Range Rover V8 - the 4wd beast
02 Toyota minivan
05 Peugeot Partner 4x4 Dangel
88 International Harvestor 633SA
--Gone but not forgotten:
1970 250/8 C (sold to buy 450 SLC)
1972 450 SLC (sold after battling wiring harness problems too long)
1971 300 SEL 6.3 (sold after destroying two *very* expensive rear LS diffs)
1986 560 SEL (now my little brother's pride and joy)

I believe all the OM60x/61x engines are sleeved - dry sleeves. This is good because you can usually return the block to as new with fresh sleeves and a bore/hone (not cheap, though).

About the OM603 turbo heads. The casting number (not the orderable part number) is 603-016-xx-01, where "xx" is the revision number. The commone early head (through 1987 at least) was #14. I have heard a 15 exists but never seen one and they are rare. In the early 90's, the 17 head was used on the 3.5L in USA. There is a 20, and a 22 is the latest I know of. 14 is the flawed one that cracks easily. I do not know if 15 is "good" or not. #17 is the strengthened, crack-resistant head. 20 and 22 have additional modifications, one being a revised oil channel in front of the #1 cylinder. Here's some photos of a #14 next to a #22:

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Dave
Boise, ID
Check out my website photos, documents, and movies!

That's great info, Dave! Thanks a lot. I have four kids and don't have time to fix cars much. I already break the Range almost every time I go 4wheeling So learning reliability tricks about a Benz turbo is way useful.

Do you mean the 3.5L as in the "Battleship" (W140) SDL? That motor has a terrible rep here in Europe, for some reason. You have to pay more buy a gasser W140, which is exactly the opposite of normal used Benz pricing. The diesels can be nearly half price. I have personally seen two W140 SDLs smoking like factories, cruising down the autobahn at 160+ kph.

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Thx/Reno
An American in France
88 300TD 5spd Sportline (lowered factory susp) - totalled by a flying deer
89 Range Rover V8 - the 4wd beast
02 Toyota minivan
05 Peugeot Partner 4x4 Dangel
88 International Harvestor 633SA
--Gone but not forgotten:
1970 250/8 C (sold to buy 450 SLC)
1972 450 SLC (sold after battling wiring harness problems too long)
1971 300 SEL 6.3 (sold after destroying two *very* expensive rear LS diffs)
1986 560 SEL (now my little brother's pride and joy)

Battleship! Heh-heh. Yeah, that's the motor, used in the USA in the 90-91 W126, and 92-95 W140 SD/SDL. Those engines have a bad rep here too, the connecting rods were weak - they'd bend, then oval out the cylinder walls, oil consumption would increase to 1 quart per couple hundred miles, and a new short block was the cure. If you buy a 3.5L crate motor it will have new, stronger rods and the engines are OK then. The same head is used on both engines (3.0L and 3.5L).

Where should I look on the head for the casting number? When I go shopping for a W124 Turbo, can I see the number without pulling the valve cover etc?

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Thx/Reno
An American in France
88 300TD 5spd Sportline (lowered factory susp) - totalled by a flying deer
89 Range Rover V8 - the 4wd beast
02 Toyota minivan
05 Peugeot Partner 4x4 Dangel
88 International Harvestor 633SA
--Gone but not forgotten:
1970 250/8 C (sold to buy 450 SLC)
1972 450 SLC (sold after battling wiring harness problems too long)
1971 300 SEL 6.3 (sold after destroying two *very* expensive rear LS diffs)
1986 560 SEL (now my little brother's pride and joy)

Yup - no problem. It's located below the #2 injector. A flashlight may help....

The 3.5L has a problem with understrength rods, and they often bend in normal service in the US, let alone Germany!

Cure is a complete overhaul with new liners, pistons, and rods, runs about $9000 US usually (50 hrs book time to do the engine, very expensive parts). The new rods appear to fix the problem, but only by doubling the price of the car.

Symptoms are serious clanking as the piston beats around in the now oval cylinder (since the rods never bend exactly on the centerline!) and huge oil consumption.

Oil smoke, however, can also be a bad turbo blowing oil out the seals. Much less expensive to fix.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

If you catch the problem early enough, you don't always need new liners & pistons, but usually the problem is ignored (or not diagnosed properly) until it's too late. If you buy one of these engines that is running well and has zero oil consumption problems, it would probably be wise to proactively replace the rods while the pistons, liners, etc are all still good! One old German repair shop owner I know swore that was the way to prevent the problem - replace the rods before they bent. Nowdays finding a good 3.5L is awfully hard though. Too bad MB never imported the nice OM606.96x engine with the W140 in the late 90's, like they had in Europe...

gsxr,

What is a 606.96x engine?

P E H

Peter, the 606.96x is the 3.0L, DOHC, intercooled, turbocharged engine used in the 1998-99 E300 diesel in the USA. Over in Europe, a variation of that engine was used in the W140 S-class, or so I'm told... haven't checked it out though.

I have a 1996 Sales Brochure for the W140 S-Class and here it is... the S300 TD

For Spec Sheet, etc. related to the S300 in the brochure click ->>
S300 Turbodiesel CLICK HERE

Excuse the poor quality 'scans' - If the pictures look funny that's because I took them with my digital camera and the pages werent exactly flat

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2008 BMW 335i Coupe

4800 rpm.

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Chris

'04 ML500 - 53k, Inspiration Edition, Desert Silver
'11 Audi A4 Avant - Brilliant Black
'87 300SDL sold
'99 C280 Sport sold
'85 190E 2.3 sold

Redline (max engine RPM, not peak power) on the 3.0L, OM603.96x is 5150rpm, +/- 150rpm. Peak power is, I believe, around 4800? The 3.5L had a much lower redline (4400?) and the 1990-up OM602, 2.5L also had a reduced redline (44-4800 I think). Almost all MB diesels produced through 1989 had the same redline specs of ~5150. The only MB diesel I know of with a *higher* redline is the non-turbo OM606 used from 1995-97, which was 5600, IIRC... (!!)