240D valve adjustment questions
 

Dear friends:

When you prepare to do valve adjustment on a 240D (1981):

1) Do you have to remove both the radiator, fan shroud and fan in order to access and rotate the crankshaft using a 27 mm socket and ratchet drive?

2) Is it possible to just remove the fan without removing the fan shroud and radiator? I don't want to remove the radiator because it seems hard to remove the oil cooler from the radiator.

3) The radiator drain hose on my 240D is made of some blue plastic, and its neck got broken when I tried to turn it in order to drain the coolant. What should I do to fix it? (just drill through it and replace with another drain plug?

4) I also tried to rotate the crankshaft (and hence camshaft) by rotating the power steering pulley bolt. However, I could only rotate it a little bit before it became very hard to turn (so I stopped because I did not want to destroy the power steering pump). Was it because of the high compression in diesel engines?


Thank you in advance for your help.

Eric

1) You shouldn't have to remove anything to get to the crank bolt if you have the right length of socket and extension.

2) Just the shroud. Maybe not even that if you know what you're doing.

3) I don't know about that. Maybe best to seal the radiator drain valve and pull the lower hose to drain the cooling system in the future.

4) You can't destroy the power steering pump that way. The belt will slip before you do any mechanical damage.

These engines are not particularly hard to turn even with the relatively high compression. I'm in terrible physical shape and I can turn a 400psi OM603 without undue strain. Remove the glow plugs so there's no compression. Don't use a puny 8" wrench.

Only turn the engine in the direction it turns when operating. That's clockwise looking at the engine from the front.

Sixto
91 300SE
87 300SDL
83 300SD

I used to turn the engine with the power steering pump nut. I pushed down on the belt when I turned it to ensure proper tension. Worked well.

Haasman

Hi ericnguyen, don't take anything apart!!! Follow haasman's advice. It's the way to go.

If I want to rotate the crankshaft instead of the power steering pulley, I believe the fan must be at least removed in order to have have access to the crankshaft bolt (27mm) either from above or below my 240D.

Eric

It will NOT be necessary to remove the fan to access the crankshaft bolt on a 240D. You will need a 27MM deep socket or 27MM socket and very short extension. Don't turn the engine with the power steering pulley causing excess strain on the belt.

If it were a 300D, then you would be best served to get the fan out of the way, but there is PLENTY of room on the four cylinder.

I noticed that you asked this question AND the question about the transmission plugs. The best way to answer these types of questions is to get on your old clothes and start checking things out with a little experimentation.

Best of luck,

Hi all:

I've just finished adjusting the exhaust and intake valves on my 1981 240D after removing the engine fan, the fan shroud and rotating the crankshaft from above (using a long breaker bar). I used the regular 14 mm wrenches and managed to adjust all 8 valves successfully. It's not really difficult to adjust them with regular wrenches.

LarryBible: on my 240D, if I did not remove the fan, it would be almost impossible to access the 27mm crankshaft bolt from above because the fan hinders the breaker bar, and accessing it from below would require the removal of the fan shroud (which in turn requires the removal of the fan).

For the manual transmission fill plug question, I just want to get everything ready before crawling under a car, especially dirty diesel ones :-)

Eric

on my 78 300d i just hooked up an underhood starter switch and bumped the starter to get the lobes where they should be...sure was easy on ME.

Scott L