Finding my lost glow plug tip and balls.
 

So in the trunk of my car I found a glowplug with a missing tip. I am starting to wonder if this is the clacking sound that I am hearing and possibly related to unburnt fuel smoke on cold startup. Recently I also pulled #4 and #5 injectors to find the atomizing balls missing/

From the diagrams it looks like the prechambers have bottom with some small holes for fuel dispersion? Or does it just empty straight into the piston? Any suggestions on how to find and retrieve these without pulling the head?

You could remove the glow plugs, then the pre-chambers and get some nice access to the combustion chamber. The PC's require a special slide hammer to remove.

I do not know if this would work, but you could pull the injectors and the PC's, get out the shop vac and rig up a small suction nozzle out of clear flex line that fits through the hole and use that to suck out the cylinders.

But are the bottoms of the PC's solid or open ended?

Looks like small holes to me:
http://catalog.worldpac.com/mercedesshop/sophio/wizard.jsp?partner=mercedesshop&clientid=catalog.mercedesshop&baseurl=http://catalog.peachparts.com/&cookieid=1Y70MFKNH22J0UIDVT&year=1983&make=MB&model=300-DT-001&category=D&part=Diesel+Prechamber

You need to pull them out anyway.Not just the broken ones either, all of them. Then I would imagine it would be easy to rig something up to vacuum out the cylinders.

Danny

"Lost glow plug tip and balls?" I thought you were talking about your anatomy at first.

Dude, he wouldnt be talkin'..... :eek:

Maybe in a different tone...

Pull and replace all PC? Why? Honestly until I can find the source of this knock and fix the unburnt fuel issue at startup I can't justify the $60+ cost per PC.

Here's a pic of the bottom in this post:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showpost.php?p=1484395&postcount=10

was it the old style loop glow plug or the new style 'pencil' that lost its tip?

85 federal sorry. pencil.

http://kudria.com/projects/vehicles/...75300D_101.jpg

The one on the right has 2 holes?

You said you lost the balls from the prechamber didn't you?? Your just going to run the engine like that?? :eek:
You don't think this is the source of your knock??

If you lost them in 2 chambers do you think the rest are in good shape?
Like I said, you need to replace them all.

danny

Those balls only serve to atomize the fuel spray providing better combustion and economy. You really think it will make that much of a difference? This knock is not related to injectors afaik as I have cracked each without isolating it. It gets less noticable as the car is warm. I did fix one cold knock by replacing #5 injector. I looked down in the PC and did not see the balls. From the looks of the nubs the balls were literally eaten away. $60 a pop is pretty pricey for a car i paid $500 and a knock I haven't been able to diagnose. I supposed I could start working pull a part over for PC's, some junkyard dog always comes and pulls all the injectors so atleast most of the work is done :). Anyproblems with using used PC's? They would get a good cleaning obviously.