Racing,

Very difficult to get a photo, but there is a sleeve like thing on the shaft snout behind the Woodruff key. It isn't black, though. I also wanted to point out the two piece thing seems to be intentionally a two piece thing. The inner part has a slot for the Woodruff key and the outer half doesn't.

I will get some part numbers and start searching, but if you have never seen them I am really wondering what they are. I hope I can find a brand if it isn't an MB part.

The tensioner plunger has a snap ring that is supposed to engage a groove in the cylinder to prevent it from coming out all the way. When we got it out, the snap ring was all that was holding the plunger inside the cylinder. I think the new style ratcheting chain tensioner is needed. They are wildly expensive here though.

I think most of this damage had been a result of the last maybe 3,000 miles as we adjusted the valves in March and only the exhaust valves needed to be adjusted. So, we spent a lot of time peering in and around the chain tensioning rail at that time and while I cannot say I recall examining the chain and the tensioning rail then, I am also fairly certain that the visible damage we saw this time when we took the valve cover off would not have been overlooked. The oil was changed at that time, before the trip back to West Lafayette, Indiana (about 900 miles) and then again before returning due to the gas contamination.

Well, off to set up for the cover removal. Thanks for the hints on the bolt hiding in the gunk. Some parts of this engine are sparkling clean, while others are filthy. The area around the bracket is filthy. Wonderful.

Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Answer is simple.No.

Gettin the pan off with motor in the car is doable though.
Drop the front sway bar-as in get it out of there.
Rise the motor as high as it will go with the mounts unbolted and block as u suggest.

Now unbolt the pan.
A large number of M6 bolts(metric 10 wrench),3 or 4 M8s(metric 13 wrench) and the 2 M10s from the trans side(metric 17)
Drop the pan as far as it will go and slide it forward until is starts to droop.
Then slide the pan sideways...and out she comes.I guarantee.

Now you can get a clean view of the bottom end as well as unbolt the pickup tube et al.

Btw.
My money is still on a stuck pressure relief valve.
Farily common issue with these engines,and something that should ALWAYS be serviced as you have it apart.

Racing,

Thanks for the encouragement. We spent a bit of time honoring the mother of my kids today, but my son was under the car for more than 4 hours anyway. He invested a bit of time cleaning up and getting ready to try to drop the pan. Thanks for the encouraging words and suggestion to turn the pan sideways to get it out. So, out it comes, next.

Tomorrow will be a slow day as for most of us, it is a work day...even the son will be goiing to work at the local golf course, tending to the greens and fairways. So, daily progress is going to slow down.

Once we get this done we will consider taking the head and front cover off the 1988 300E. It has an oil leak at the right front corner of the head and front cover that just pees that Mobil Delvac 1. About a liter every 1500 km.

Will continue to keep you posted and once again, thanks very much for the help. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Anytime man...
That´s what the internet and forums like this is for.

Yeah,please keep me posted of progress.

I took some photos of the filter after we split it open and spread it out to show what was caught in the folds. This site has a 65kb limit on photo size and that makes it difficult to put a good photo up. But, here are a few anyway. Overall I think the volume of the particulate is well below the teaspoon volume noted earlier as a sign of being in deep s**t.

I think the frequent oil changes while this was happening is the main reason as plenty of metal was eaten by the chain and drumped into the oil.

We took the head to the local shop I have used before for the other two 16 valve heads we have refurbished, today. I will report back once they get to disassembling the head and taking some measurements if there is anything unusual. On the first one we had to make a special valve guide for as one of the old guides took a little extra head material out with it when it was knocked out. The cleaned bore was beyond the last stage of repair MB makes available, which was not the last stage of repair the technical manual suggests should be available. In the end it all worked out, but it threw another three weeks into the project while I tried to get a last stage of repair guide from Europe.

My son spent 4 hours cleaning and removing and cleaning and removing items from the front cover. I think the oil pan will be a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon event at this rate.

The first of the photos shows all ~60 folds of the filter, however the lighting doesn't show the particulate matter all that clearly. The next shot shows, in better lighting, the loading of particulate per fold. The third shot shows a close up of one of the largest chunks of material. The last shows what appeared to be the fold with the heaviest load of particulate. Overall the particulate in the filter was pretty small, and wouldn't add up to a teaspoon of volume.

Jim

Attached Thumbnails

       

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Looks like you´re safe Jim.
If nothing more than that...

None the less,i for one would still take the caps off the rods to have a look.
Sort of dowright folly not to as you´re that deep into the engine anyways.

But...as noted..that amount of debris in an oilfilter is ok.
Especially so under the circumstances.

Racing,

(edit: OBE, see below) We are having trouble locating all the fasteners holding the power steering pump and air conditioning compressor support bracket to the front cover and block. That is one hell of a bracket and it is just bristling with fasteners. There appears to be a socket head capscrew behind the oil cooler lines, almost in the "crotch" of the bracket where it fits up to the long side of the block (the screw is below three 17mm hex head bolts that screw into the block from the driver's side perpendicular to the crankshaft orientation)(edit: see below - it is another 17mm hex head bolt that is obscured by oil lines). Is that the one you cautioned us would be covered in gunk (this one was) and hard to locate? We think we have all the other ones out. We have not taken the air conditioning compressor off the bracket as I don't want to do anything that means I release the freon to the atmosphere - this car has the original version of freon in it, and, it was recently recharged and works fine so I don't really want to disturb it if I don't have to.

Yesterday was lost. We had serious thunderstorms all afternoon and lost power for a minute after sunset. So, today the support bracket should come off along with the sway bar. My older son graduates from college this weekend so we will be entertaining relatives, meaning the weekend is likely lost.

We will be pricing out all the parts at various local and internet parts sources. Since this is a European version, from relatively early in the production (I believe the head casting has a date of manufacture cast into the side of December 17, 1984) and is technically called a 1985 Model Year, I am wondering if you have any European parts sourcing places I can contact on the internet, for things like a chain tensioner and some other parts that are not that commonly called for and therefore not likely to be in stock over here.

Thanks again for the help. By the way are you and "PUMPISH" from the same area? It seems, between you guys and the guys up there roasting Mercedes-Benz turbocharged Diesels, that tuning "not quite new" MB's and making street legal racing machines out of them is pretty popular in your neck of the woods.

Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Well, the bracket is off. The oil cooler lines were the biggest problem with that last bolt. In the bright light of direct sunlight, we could see the bolt clearly even if it was inside a little pipe hanger brace for the oil cooler lines that was held onto the bracket by that last bolt. Unfortunately we had to mutilate the hanger to liberate the pipes to get access to the bolt (17mm hex head, not a socket head cap screw as I reported earlier). Once that bolt came out the bracket was loose. Lots of cleaning to do before we put it back on, or even open the engine by removing the front cover.

The later model 190E 2.3-16s likely don't have the same plumbing for either the oil lines or the A/C system. In this car the A/C lines completely cover the access to the bolt holding the pipe hanger together, which means it will be difficult to properly brace these pipes next time around. We will have to find another place to support them as this brace/hanger is about shot.

So, we inspected the crankshaft vibration dampner and found both parts have their own part numbers. In case you are curious and have a really slow day, this curiosity may be of interest to you: the dampner itself, with the crank timing marks on the rubber OD is 102 030 10 030, while the part the serpentine belt pulley bolts to is 102 030 00 74. The dampner has a counterbore that forms a rabbet fit with the protruding lip from the part ending in "00 74."

Well, that's it for today and likely for the weekend given family is coming and won't find it polite if my son and I show up occasionally covered in black goop from the engine. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

I didn't read the whole post, but this started with a few broken chain rails?

Why did the head need to come off? I replaced all the rails in my 87 after finding bits of rails in the pan. I never pulled the head. It was a TOTAL pain in the arse. I feel for you. What a nightmare. The fun begins when you have to put it back together. I remember spending several hours just getting those bolts that support the oil lines back in. Oh the HOROR.

Did you get the oil pan off. That's another choir. The dip stick tube will need to be cut or removed. BTDT.

In hindsight, I bet it would be more efficient to pull the whole motor and do it out of the car.

Have fun.

Tinker

Tinker,

I have taken the rails out of other cars without taking the head off, however, I was advised by several experts, including Racing in this thread, that the head should come off. Getting the head off was the least of our problems as we have now done that three times on three different 190E 2.3-16 valve engines. There really was nothing wrong with the head though, and there is always that looming concern that you shouldn't fix what is not broken...

We should have the oil pan off tonight. It is decent weather day today, but the ground is quite wet still. It poured on Saturday for the graduation ceremony, so we all got soaked and chilled by a wind that would gust to about 40 mph. Very memorable event. Then it rained off and on all day yesterday. Should be much better today, mostly blue sky, so by 3 pm when my son gets back from work we should be ready to remove the pan.

Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Tinker.
In fact the entire engine assy is divided into "modules".
This is where most people go wrong.
IOW...no need to disassemble the top end to get it off.
Just unhook the ehxaust at the hedder(don´t forget the exhaust bracket that hold the hedder to the block by the transmission),and on the other side you yank it out of there complete with intake and all.
(Don´t forget the two "hidden" M8s that holds the plenum to the lower plenum bracket)

Glad to hear you´re doing progress Jim.
Over here we´ve been busy with the big 16V meet down at hockenheim ring in germany.
Don´t think i´ve ever seen so many 16Vs in one place in my life!!
Approx 150 of them in various configs...EVOs...EVOIIs...Class1 cars aso.
It was really a SUPER event..no two ways about it.

Racing,

The oil pan is out and the front cover is loose, but it won't slide over the crankshaft. I think it stops when it hits the crankshaft seal ring or something. Should I try heating the front cover a bit with a torch in the area of the crank shaft? It moves about 10mm and then stops with a metallic clunk. It doesn't get tight or difficult to move otherwise, it even clears the dowels, but it doesn't clear the distributor drive, so it won't rotate very far. I can put it back in place but it doesn't help. Any suggestions? I don't want to damage anything on the crank. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Racing,

Sounds like a great time in Hockenheim. I saw a bit of one of those meets in the past on one of the You Tube videos that came up after one of your videos. Looked like a great time. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Don´t even come close to the crank with a torch anything!!!!

As noted i have to admit to never havng seen the setup of your car IRL.
On the "normal" ones though,it starts with extracting the dampner.
Then there´s a small "ring"-that is a replaceable ring for the front seal-followed by a black anodized larger ring with two longitudal cuts in it that is the oil pump drive.
Both of these rings have to come out.

The distributor gear can be a biatch at times tho...true..
However,there´s nothing keeping the dist gear at the front cover.
Dist gear is held in place by a small "fork" at the block,that in turn is held in place by a small metric allen bolt.Ie;the dist gear can very well wear the bearing it resides in at the cover in a way ugly enough to make it stick a LITTLE,but apart from that....nope...nothing to keep it in place.

I also presume that you´ve unbolted the oil pump pickup tube at its bracket at one of the main webs?

Btw.
The small "seal" ring at the crank can also stick on occasion...no real good remedy for that except gorilla it off with a pair of pliers and a breaker(screwdriver).It can always be ground and papered ok as you have it off,and when they do stick it almost always at the front end of the crank.