Larry,

What's the latest on Daughter's 300D. You were having some trouble with it couple weeks ago, weren't you? How's it doing? How many miles on it? Good luck!!

Wilton,

Thanks for asking. I ended up pulling the head and taking it to the machine shop. He replaced valves, valveguides and surfaced it. The cylinders looked very good, with just a whisper of a ridge that you could feel with your fingernail but it would not catch on the ridge.

I put the head back on and once it got to a point where I could turn it over enough to check compression, I checked number one. It was at 100 when I took it apart, and it only came up to 200. I did not check any more, I finished putting it together, with great doubt that I had done anything to improve the start situation.
I ensured cam and injection pump timing and turned it over probably about 20 seconds when it got fuel to the injectors and lit off promptly.

I got everything finished off and test drove the car before turning it over to my daughter.

It seems that it is not using oil like it was, and she is able to start it. We had a "Norther" as we call it in Texas blow in yesterday. It got in the low 20's. I was afraid she would call any time saying that it would not start, but she came rolling in the driveway. She said it didn't start right away, but she did get it started. Nowhere to plug in the block heater at school, so she did it with nothing but glow plugs.

I have not yet rechecked compression in the entire engine, I'm kind of afraid to. I have checked everything I know to check. I've never had one of these cars that, with good glow plugs, didn't start easy in the worst of weather we may have here. I had a worn out serial glow plug 240D that started in 8 degree weather. This was when I learned that diesel fuel freezes at 8 degrees.

The car seems to be running well, but I'm really puzzled at it not just starting right up in any weather. If it were a serial glow plug car, I probably wouldn't expect as much.

The things I did to it were: fresh glow plugs and getting voltage to all five, relay working okay, fresh fuel filters, cam and injection timing check, fresh head with valves adjusted of course, near new battery from parts car, pumped with hand pump to see if there was a difference.

My confidence in the car is like about 80%. I don't really know what to do to get it to just start right up like I've always seen these engines start.

Thanks for your concern and letting me think it through in text here for everyone to examine. Maybe someone can come up for something else to check.

Have a great day,

Larry, I am glad to hear that you got the car running and please post the hot compresion numbers when or if you run the test.What was wrong with the old vales that kept the car from starting. May I ask, how mush did you spend to get the head reconditioned. I should get mine done? Happy holidays, Jay

Jay,

The compression was down on the engine, and it was sucking oil like crazy. It was time to give it a shot. It did bring the compression up enough for it to start. I will post compression numbers when I get to it.

The machinist I go to has a reputation as being Slow, Good and expensive, he proved himself on all three counts on the head from my 300E as well as the 300D head. It cost $500 for surfacing, R&R prechambers, valves, guides, seals and valve work. His work is very thorough.

Good luck,

Larry,

If I recall the earlier posts correctly, this engine had checked out well in all respects not long before the failure. Do you have a clue yet as to what may have caused the sudden overall decline of this engine?

Thanks. Have a good day.

__________________
Ted
1979 240D
165,000 miles

No, I don't. Yes it ran 300PSI on all cylinders back during the summer. The cylinders looked good when I had it apart, no scoring, very little ridge.

I'm very puzzled by the whole thing. The engine, even with high compression numbers used scads of oil. The possibility exists that she let it get to low on oil. But I really don't think so. I watched closely all the time, and she was very dilligent in keeping oil in the motor. If it had run low of oil which caused the decline, I would think that the cylinders would have shown that.

The engine still does not jump to life like it did before the sudden hard start fiasco. I suspect that there is something else here other than compression, but have been unable to put my finger on it.

Thanks for the responses,