This thread reminds me of two stories of when I was a student, more than twenty years ago, back in the south of France.

The first one is when I bought an Alfetta GTV 2.0 in a junkyard. It was a rust bucket, but it was cheap. I was young and thrilled to own a "sportscar' anyway. The car had all kind of gages I had never seen before in a car, such as oil pressure. The latter never went above half, but by then I didn't know this was wrong. So I took it on the highway with a friend of mine just to see what it had in the guts. Man, we were soon to see all the guts in the open air! The engine blew while I was driving at 190 km/h and passing someone! I stopped on the emergency lane, opened the bonnet and when the huge cloud of smoke started clearing I could see the engine had dropped on one side, reason being that there was a huge hole in the block in lieu and place of the engine holder bracket. I could even see the crankshaft, missing a rod. But the adventure did not stop there. I had a rope in the trunk and started waiving at passing cars. An old gran’pa stopped, laughed at us and said he knew all about this kind of situations as he had two sons that went through our age and adventures. He accepted to pull us till the next exit which was 30 kms away. He just told us he would drive at a sustained speed so as not to be a danger on the highway for other drivers. We said OK without knowing we had just embarked into another scary experience: the old’pa started driving above 130 km/h which is the speed limit on highways in France and even started passing all the traffic on the left lane. We were following behind at 2 meters from him and with no brakes as they were not assisted anymore. What a relief when we pulled at the next exit!

The next story is when a friend of mine called me in a panic because the Citroen 2CV his grandmother gave him was smoking like hell. I went there and when we opened the hood everything was covered in oil in there. He started the car and it was running very badly. I told him not to worry, spare engines were cheap in the junkyards and that we could swap it in one afternoon. So we started driving to the junkyards in search of an engine. The car was smoking like hell. Literally like hell. We couldn’t see anything behind us and traffic had to stop in both directions for a while everywhere we went. It was beyond my belief that a car could smoke like that. When we reached the first junkyard the owner had seen us coming from far. We asked him whether he had a spare engine and he started asking questions. Obviously he had some idea of what was going on. Finally, my friend admitted that it all started when he performed an oil change. He was not mechanically inclined but he thought an oil change was simple enough and he would save some money by doing it himself. He explained to us that he drained the oil out of the engine, put the plug back then refilled the engine with new oil. That was the word: “refilled”. The guy asked him refilled up to what level? He answered refilled until it was full. Not to the higher mark on the oil gage that he even didn’t know it existed. Full until no more oil could go in it, at the top of the tube above the engine where 2CV engines are being refilled. So we all laughed. The guy at the junkyard just took the oil plug out, drained some oil until the level was OK, and we drove back home with a normally working 2CV.

Glad to hear it's nothing to worry about, though I'm still confused. I changed the oil filter, along with the oil, a few months ago. Can someone explain to me why this would start now?

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1975 240D W115 - If anyone can suggest a good all around repair manual (or two) that covers this model, please do so.

Hello Peaches,

I finally know what caused the engine to fail. It was not at all on my list of possible causes.

The first thing I did after I got the engine running was take it to get the shifter rebuilt and the oil changed at Special Car Services here in Houston. The shifter would only go up and down for first and second gears. The owner of the shop is German and specializes in older Mercedes. He fixed the shifter so it went up and down and I had reverse and third, fourth gears. He must have forgotten about the oil change.

The oil in the car was at least 7 years old. The previous owner never had it running in the 5 years ownership, and it was sitting for a few years with the PO+PO. The oil filter was obviously not 1500 miles old when I took it apart yesterday. The oil was black as tar with about the same consistency. When Don told me that was obviously why the motor failed, I was pretty calm. I still blame myself and I am ultimately responsible, afterall it is my car that is sitting in the shop torn down. If I was checking my oil regularly I probably would have thought it should be changed immediately. I put complete blind faith in Rudy.

This is still a cautionary tale...

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1962 220Sb ~ The Emerald Bullet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx6tN1W48_o
1957 Ponton 220S
2001 S600 Daily Driver
The Universe is Abundant ~ Life is GOOD!http://www.classiccarclock.com

I had the same kind of sludge in my 6.3 when I changed the oil. The oil was black but what I found inside the oil filter casing (which mounts upside down) is that it was half full with black sludge that has the consistency of the jelly that you find in cheap dog food.

I soaked the oil filter housing in brake clean and cleaned it. It took a lot of brake clean to break this sludge down.

With so much sludge in the oil filter area, I suspect that there will be plenty more in the rest of the engine so I plan to change the oil and filters every few hundred miles when I get it running so that new oil can break down the sludge slowly. This is like a slow engine flush as I fear that a full flush may itself dislodge so much sludge that it will get caught in the pickup pipe at the bottom of the sump and block it up (which I suspect is what happened to your car).

If there was that much sludge in the oil filter housing, remove the oil pan and see what you have there before you assume the worse of that mechanic. While it may be the case, I find that almost too stupid to even call incompetent if they did not replace the filter but it's very likely to me that the detergent in the new oil dislodged more sludge which then found itself in the oil filter housing and in the oil pan.

This is why when you use an engine flush, they recommend that you remove the oil pan afterward and clean out the contents by hand before running the engine.

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With best regards

Al

Al, think about dropping the Sump and washing it out before starting the car and driving it. Plus flush the oil cooler with petrol because there will be crap in there too.
Dropping the pan can be done if you either drop the front axle or lift the engine until the trans connects the tunnel. It's a one piece deal and you have to wriggle it around the oil pump. If you don't feel like doing that ,pour a liter of ATF into the oil,get it hot and dump the oil and filter again .
Oil and filters are many thousands of dollars cheaper than 6.3 engine parts.

Jeffery,

Old oil won't make an engine fail generally but lack of oil will. i have an engine here which had had regular oil changes but no one bothered to change the filter which collapsed and filled the engine with little bits of filter paper. These blocked the oil galleries to the heads and that ruined the cam bearings. The cams seized and bent the valves.

I wouldn't blame your mechanic until I read his bill. If he has Charged you for an oil and filter change then i would blame him. If not,then it would appear he wasn't asked to change the oil.
Recently a customer blew an engine in a former one owner car with very low miles . He had changed the oil ,fitted two new weber carbs and rebuilt the head. The engine lasted about 200 miles because he proceeded to drive at full blast everywhere (80MPH plus) .
Engines which have been driven at low speeds in high for long periods often have wear which isn't apparent from the driving seat. This wear includes crystallization of the bearing material.
A new owner gets in the car ,drives it without knowing about or even caring. Next a crank bearing fails ...

I have seen Daimlers,peugeots,Mercedes,Several types of Fords, etc etc all succumb to exactly the same thing.

That sucks man, such a beautiful car. I bet you will be driving it again shortly