Quote:
Originally Posted by babymog
... and after 5 603 turbos, two of them "rod benders", and a 602 turbo (early head) and several hundred-thousand miles, I have had excellent service.
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Yep.
I'm constantly amazed at the praise heaped on the OM61X series of engines I hear on this site. Having owned at least 5 examples of the OM61X series over the better part of two decades I'm mystified at the descriptions of toughness and reliability I seem to hear on a semi-weekly basis. I've done full-rebuilds on two OM616 engines I've owned, both had less than 200K miles on them and the failure mode was identical, cylinders bores were 4-6X out spec for taper in the last half inch of bore travel. Both engines ran OK but wouldn't start at temps lower than about 20F and used a quart of oil every 700 miles. I've also had an OM615 develop a cracked cylinder head back in the early 80's - and remember this was a cast-iron head. Maybe I just got unlucky but I can say I don't have warm-and-fuzzy memories of my times in the OM61X. Oil leaks, valve adjustments, ALDA adjustments, glow plug replacements, drip timing, injector shimming, nozzle replacements seemed to be the norm.
By contrast I've never even had the cylinder head of any post OM602 series engines I've had in service - and the all have used zero oil and start at temps where my OM61X's wouldn't have a chance. They are smoother, more powerful and more refined. Don't know if they would start on the first compression stroke after sitting in a field for a decade but I suspect they would - have no reason to think the wouldn't.
Now that I think about it I realize I've got quite a few OM61X service tools in my shop. I've got a pre-chamber puller, drip overflow tube, and one of those a-b timing lights. Anybody that wants them please PM me with an offer because I'm pretty sure I'll never again own an OM61X engine!!!!