Rings and bearings type rebuild??

[JDmills]

I have been kicking around the thought of putting new rings and bearings in the motor of my 84 300TD. The thought was brought up in a older HOT ROD magazine artical that did such a thing with a chrysler 318 with over 200,000 miles on it, and that motor had a good enough ring seal to produce over 400HP.
I imagine that the short block of a mercedes Diesel, is as well or better constructed (high nickel content?) than an chrysler gasser would be.

As it is right now, the motor has an impressive amount of blow by. Although it runs well, I am thinking that it would not hurt any to freshen up some to the internals, such as the timing chain, bearings, rings, and may be do some valve work, mild porting, and bowl clean up work. actually I am most interested in doing the head work, and was thinking that rings and bearings may be of some benifit. any one had experience in this area, as to the wisdom of such a brainstorm?

Thanks,
Jason

[KCampbell]

Presumably it all depends on the bore wear? If the bores have worn out of round then just replacing the rings won't buy you enough, I wouldn't think.

I'll be interested to hear if anyone has actually rebuilt one of these.

Kevin

[leathermang]

Do you have a MB Factory Shop manual for your engine ?
If yes, Have you read it ?

[JDmills]

No, I do not. What am I missing?

[engatwork]

If it is starting/running good I would not do anything to it till the compression gets below specs.

[P.E.Haiges]

JD,

I agree with Engatwork, If its running good leave well enough alone. Use a good SYnthetic oil like Castrol Syntech or Mobil 1 and it may reduce the blowby.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

BTW, I never heard of a motor that had rings, but engines do.

P E H

[JDmills]

P E H,
Point well made. Lazy on my part I guess.

[leathermang]

You are missing the specs the shop manual says are important....and how to insure you have them....
You are missing the amount of blowby the manual says is ok... and how that blowby should be measured.
You are missing the rebuilding concepts built into the design of the engine which would dictate little things like that if you need new rings and have the engine opened up THAT far... that you probably should press in new bores and that each piston would need to be measured in order to hone the new bore to the correct size required to meet the very close specs which MB considers necessary for a long lasting engine...
ETC...

Shop manual = cheap insurance ( and good cold weather reading ).