there's a metallic grating noise or something like it in the front of my new engine. finally got it started last night, but the noise made me shut it right off.

timing chain looks perfect. can't pull the chain up at all from the top sprocket, no visible wear on the tensioner as far as I can see, noise doesn't increase when I take the oil filler cap off.

( by the way, even when cold, there doesn't appear to be any blow by. NONE! out the filler cap. not too bad for 270K. all in all much tighter than the engine in my 300D 170 abused K) and not too bad for an engine that's sit for 2 years in a junkyard.

I'll see if I can record the sound for all to hear, and I'll remove the fan clutch to eliminate that possibility.

karl

I'm thinking vacuum pump - but that's a totally unsubstantiated guess. You also have your pully accessories too, P/S pump, AC pulley, etc.

Maybe you can determine something by cranking the engine over by hand using the 27mm nut on the crank pulley? Or then again it may not happen at that slow speed.

I have an unusual startup noise on one car that I think is the P/S pump. My plan to isolate it to that suspect is to simply remove the belt sometime. You might try the same - remove all the belts.

Ken300D

__________________
--------------------------
1982 300D at 351K miles
1984 300SD at 217K miles
1987 300D at 370K miles

"Looks perfect" you say..... Sorry but were you expecting to see a chewed up chain? You sure as hell caint determine stretch by looking and pulling on it, caint tell if the tensioner is any good either. But wait maybe you've got pyschic powers.

Stethoscope is what you need instead of doing nutty exporatory surgery on engine components. And if it sounds like the chain then measure the stretch correctly by setting the engine at TDC. 10 degrees is considered excessive. The prob with junkyard engines is you never know the maintenance history, could even be the original chain and/or tensioner.

or maybe if the engine was sitting for so long, it just needs to be run, but then agian im not an engine expert

__________________
1983 Euro 240D 277K
2016 Mazda 6
Coming Soon, 2013 Mercedes E350 Bluetec
Formers:
2012- Mazda 3
2007 Outlander- complete pile
1995 E300 Diesel 208K
2007 VW Passat 2.0T 63K SOLD
2003 Jaguar X-type 3.0 Sport Sold 04/11 w/88K
2009 Lexus RX350 9061 miles. Sold 04/09
2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS:Totaled Sept.,09 @ 24,000
2003 Infiniti I35 58K Sold
1984 300 turbo diesel 222K

Vacuum pump, timing chain, water pump, PS pump, AC clutch, alternator? I agree, try to locate the sound and/or try starting it with the belts removed to eliminate all the belt driven stuff. Did you verify that you have oil pressure?

oil pressure is good.

I'm comparing the amount of chain I could lift off of the top sprocket of this engine to the same on my other engine which runs fine.
timing is off 8 deg.

stethoscope examination and belt removal coming tonight.

karl

tough crowd tonite.

but good points.

tom w

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

please listen to your fan clutch via stethoscope with your engine running and tell me what you hear. then I'll listen to mine and compare. exploratory surgery? at this point pulling bits off the engine to see what's wrong is hardly more than asking "where does it hurt?"

pulled off the alternator-water pump belts, noise went away. alternator had 3 months on it when old engine grenaded. checks out good.
will pull fan clutch tonite and try w/o fan. I have spares of all of the above, but will spring for a new water pump if thats it. what an ingenious design!

so far so good. I'm willing to put some real money into this engine now that I know it runs ok. as in new oil cooler hoses, oil cooler, timing chain, and some other bits. I wasn't willing untill I had the engine in and knew it ran ok.

karl

Sounds like you're on the right track Karl. You also handled 240DieselDog's unnecessarily rude response well. Guess he might want to mix in spell check next time he rails on the next guy just asking for advise.
I'd be fairly pumped if I pulled a junkyard engine out and it seemed to be in the shape yours is in.
Good luck and keep us posted.
You might shove that stethoscope in a glow plug hole and see how everything sounds in there after you check out the fan clutch....

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

thanks.

I'm almost certain the noise is the rear alternator belt rubbing on the alternator's cooling fan.

put some red piant on the alt cooling fan and it rubbed off on the outside corner. tried unsucessfully to shim it a little farther back in the mount, or to rotate it a litttle bit. no luck.

am I going to destroy anything by tweaking the alternator cooling fan bllades back say 1/16"? it's almost new (4 mos run time) hate to unnecessarily damage a $189 alternator.

the easy solution would be to run it on one belt. but I don't like that idea.

on the further engine health: cranked over this morning for ~8 sec, and engine started, no glowing at all, and I know I've got some air in the lines.
it's about 70 deg in my garage right now.

karl

You mentioned you used that alt. for a month or so before the swap with no trouble, so I think a new alt with a bent fan from the assembler could be out of the picture at this point, I would doublecheck that you have good pulley to pulley alignment before bending anything, maybe one of the pulleys didn't seat right or is slightly different than the old engine's, or perhaps there was a spacer you accidentally left out? If the other pulley is out or in it will drag the belt that direction, making it hit fan tips.
-Chris

checked the alignment and looked at the alternator in my 300d, and the pully was waaaaayyy too far from the alt body. I dissasembled the pully/fan assembly and went to my local NAPA, they gave me a couple of fans that'd fit, including a low profile fan. (they like me there)

turns out the rebuilder put the spacers in the wrong order. I made a new 2 mm spacer and it all seems to line up nicely. runs great, no odd noises, but an occasional knock from the top end. probably piston slap. and a bit of blue smoke at idle. will do valve seals soon. so far seems to run better than my beat 300d w/170k.

next: leaky brake line and bleeding brakes, repair suspension mount. road test!!

karl