Good news and bad news on the "new" engine for the 1972 220D

[psfred]

Finally got around to taking the head off the 220D engine I bought in Tennessee a couple weeks ago off eBay.

Story was that the PO had the engine rebuilt because it was using huge quantites of oil and blowing mucho smoke -- turned out to be the diaphram in the vac pump, which he discovered AFTER getting the engine work done, of course.

Burned out a couple sets of glow plugs before he got the injectors fixed, stopped buring plugs, then broke the chain.

He gave up, modified the car to take a Ford 232 six and tranny, and drove it till it rusted away. Got a 250 and did the same, finally junked that, too, and was cleaning up stuff from his father's barn (under duress, I think).

He'd pulled the head, and everything looked fine except for the broken cam towers, regretted not looking sooner as all it really seemed to need was a new chain and cam towers (I concur, rotates nicely, no markes on pistons, etc.

However, when I looked, I saw pretty much what I expected to see, sadly -- nice shiny cylinder wall with no sign of honing marks. Lots of carbon at the top of the bore, too.

Way too much piston clearance, in spite of being rebuilt at a diesel shop.

#1 valves are oily, too, so I expect to have to put new guides in, the ones in there have way too much clearance. I'll check that in a day or two when I round up a couple wrenches, but I'm not really expecting tight guides.

I pushed all the valves down on the bench to check for bent ones -- all move just fine, but I'll take them out and do a real check later. Tons of soot fell out of a couple onto the bench, so I guess I'll have to do the bores, eh?

I guess I'm gonna have to decide whether to do new liners and a bore and hone correctly or just button it up and run it till the compression drops.

I'll try to get some pics in the next couple days and post them.

Peter

[Palangi]

Sounds familiar. I would almost bet that engine is out of a 68 or 69.

[psfred]

Yup, sure is!

How did you know?

Peter

[Palangi]

There were a few years back then (basically the end of the 200D's and the start of the 220D's) where they decided they could get by with less chromium in their steel. The cylinders would go out egg shaped. You would need to tow an oil tanker to keep it going.

[psfred]

New liners and pistons in the 80's, though...

Not much chromium in the liners, they are high nickel carbon steel as I remember, but who knows!

Burns me up that a diesel shop didn't bother to get the piston clearance right. I've seen this before -- too much clearance and the rings cock, rip the cylinder wall out terribly, and flare the ring lands out so you have to toss the pistons.

Peter

[Palangi]

The head is off my 240D right now. I was very relieved to see the condition of the cylinders looks good. We're still scratching around for a replacement head though.