om617.951 into a w116
 

My '79 300sd needs a new heart. After searching around for .950 without any luck, I am looking to use a .951 instead. I spoke with a reputable shop near Orlando, a place called Noel's, and he suggested the biggest obstacle is that the upper oil pan has a piece of metal that won't clear the 116's engine bay, which needs to be cut off, or swapped with one from a .950.

The engine is missing the a/c pump and power steering pump. Anyone know if these are by chance the same as the .950? Crossing fingers and wishful thinking ;-)

I imagine this has been done many times, does anyone have first hand knowledge? Will the trans bolt up? Seems the engine mounts do. Any ideas on what else would need modification/ anything notable?

I have the 617.951 in my 80 SD (from an 83 SD) so yes it will work.

Mach 4 in his thread on putting a 617 in his SL, had to get an upper pan from an SD because it had no ribs (300D pan ribs hit crossmember). The SD might need a pan without ribs, so maybe your .951 may need the .950 pan.

Great, I have the .950 pan from the blown motor. How about the linkage? Just looking at pictures it looks like the throttle system is different. I know the injection pumps are different, not sure if this matters.

Ether, great to hear! What else can you tell me :-)

The engine was in the car when I bought it 11 years ago so I wasn't around for the transplant.

You will be able to swap over the linkages.


The other thing you'll need to swap over is the oil filter housing. The .950 housing is for a mechanical oil pressure gauge, while the .951 housing is for an electric gauge.


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Great! So we have the upper oil pan, oil filter housing, and linkage swapping over. The injection pumps are different, will i need to move this too? Any trans bolting issues?

The only difference I know of with the IP, is that some models ('84 & '85) had a rack position sensor. You don't need it for your car, so you could just coil the wire and leave it laying between the IP and block. If you are a purist, you can change out the IP and the other parts that are for the later engines with emission controls. You may need to change the upper pan anyway, because the trap-ox equipped engine's oil pan did not have an air cleaner drain tube. If your SD had the crankcase ventilation tube connected to the "U" tube (not to the top of the air cleaner), then you will need a pan without the air cleaner drain tube.