1985 Mercedes 300D Turbo - NO RUST - Gerogia Car
 

This car is from Georgia and has only been up here a few years. Very solid body, no rust. Paint is faded, but looks great in my opinion. New Glow plugs, radio, oil change and filter, primary and secondary fuel filter, new water pump and housing, new Monarch hand fuel pump, new power antenna. May extras like repair manual and extra Gauge housing Now the bad news, the engine is seized, but top end OK. Injector pump rebuilt 40,000 miles ago. Great body for a project car. Put a new MB engine in it or a V8. Interior is about a 7-8 out of 10. All gauges work and so does odometer. Engine rebuilt 40K ago by previous owner.
Location: Jackson, MI

$2500 obo

http://www.fsmo.org/pics/1.jpeghttp://www.fsmo.org/pics/2.jpeghttp://www.fsmo.org/pics/3.jpeghttp://www.fsmo.org/pics/4.jpeghttp://www.fsmo.org/pics/5.jpeghttp://www.fsmo.org/pics/8.jpeg

$2500 for a parts car?

What happened to the rebuilt engine?

Obo

Turned the crank counter clockwise while installing a new water pump housing

That shouldn't seize the engine. Seriously. You should look into that some more. There is no way that just turning the engine the wrong way by hand for a little bit would actually seize the engine.

Seized
 

We took off the valve cover and all looked fine. Valve for cyliner #1 was up. We could not turn the crank with a breaker bar and extension. I would be more than happy for someone to look at it with more Mercedes experience. Any local volunteers.

Well it all depends on how badly you want to keep the car. It looks like a pretty nice 300D, though the paint is not to good. Now about seizing the engine, unless you seized it while running, I don't think it is "seized up". But it could be locked up. And if you want to keep the car you will have to put more effort in finding the cause of the problem. It can't be in the water pump because that is only indirectly pulled by the engine. But go over your work carefully. More then one owner operator has bungled a job by leaving a scraper or a screwdriver or a socket, really any little tool that can get behind the front vibration damper. Really look good! Look over, under, around and behind any moving part in the area that you worked on. Get your fingers in there and feel around. If that doesn't yield anything, well just keep on looking. Pull the glow plugs so you are not working against compression. Then get a good fitting deep 17mm, (I think) socket on that front crank bolt and shake it up a bit and you don't have to put tremendous torque on the wrench to do that. A breaker bar so that you can change direction fast should work well. Shake it up and watch out that something doesn't fall out and hit you in the face. If that doesn't yield results, take the bottom pan off and get a good light and see what you can see. Remember, nothing is going to unstick your engine but you. You have the front of the engine clear of obstruction, so if all else fails, get the instructions for pulling chain rails and guides. I hope you can find the problem before you have to go that far. Now if you ran the engine hot or without oil, then you seized it - that is you darn near melted the pistons into the block. Only you know if that is the problem. If you didn't do that, then keep on looking for that lost screwderiver or socket or whatever.

Well, I looked and looked and noticed that one of the bolts for the waterpump housing was not clearing the dampner. For some reason I put a washer on that bolt. Removed it, 1/8 turn at a time because of space restriction, tightened back up and the crank now turns. I am going to put it back together this weekend.

My next question is can I reuse the rubber gasket on the valve cover? Does it need some type of sealant? Thanks to all for your help.

You can re-use it if it's in good shape still. Just clean it up well, clean the spot where it goes over the cover, and clean the mating surface on the head.

No sealant required.

For further help you'll want to go back to the first thread you started. You'll get more views I'm sure.