Unlike tangofox007 I had no way of removing the spacer on my OM617 that easily. I hope it works for you that way though.

I ended up replacing the front crankshaft seal with the old spacer still in there. The seal leaked after about 100 miles. As I had other engine troubles I ended up rebuilding the whole engine (long story) - but - to remove the original spacer on my crank I had to drill into the spacer to allow me to chisel the bloody thing off (crank removed from engine).

I hope you don't need that kind of effort.

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!