I recently picked up a pretty clean two tone wagon for $550 . The previous owner parked it for about two years, due to "Dropping oil pressure while at speed" (I have not had any evidence of this). The engine ran, with an obvious miss, and has enough blow by to make the oil cap fly off and do a pretty good imitation of a freight train. It also sent up a grey diesely smoke cloud that would put James Bond to shame. But for the price I took a gamble on the engine.

This being my 3rd om617, I felt good about my chances of being able get this one back to a point of being usable while I saved up for a replacement engine if needed.

So far I have:

Sent off my injectors off to be cleaned and balanced, done by Greazer. Helped all around, power, drivability and less smoke. Was told that the #2 injector was shot. Replaced with usable used unit.

While the injectors were out, I put Marvel Mystery Oil in each cylinder and cranked the engine over by hand, a little each day.

Adjusted valves, most weren't half bad, surprisingly.

I found that the miss was due to a loose prechamber nut on #2, tightened it up and made worlds of difference, no more miss, but still had poor idle.

Installed new rack damper bolt, cleaned up the neutral idle but still shakes bad in gear. (More tweaking will fix it I think).

New filters and oil change. Old oil smelled heavily of exhaust and slightly of diesel. But fine beyond that. Very Dark, possibly a hair thin.

Removed the Alda, seeing that it had been tampered with previously. Suspected that it was broken in the fuel limiting position, but no change after it was removed.

I have about 200 miles on the car. But billows continuous grey smoke, hot/cold, idle or at high RPMs. The power is very inconsistent. 1000-2000rpms is below average, but tolerable. 2000-3000ish is below average, usable. 3000-3500rpms the car actually to slow down. 3500-4200rpms is the best part of the power band, has some pull to it. Recently started to notice a 'ticking' above 2200rpms, only under load, about 60% of the time. Seems to change with the rpms. Happens more often when warm. Warm idle is 1.3 bar I would estimate. If the accelerator is slightly depressed when starting, it will start immediately, low of 35F. If no pedal is applied it will crank for 2-3 seconds before starting. All glow plugs are working. Operating temp is normal. Will be getting a boost gauge hooked up tomorrow, hopefully.

0-60 mph time is averaging 43 seconds. Merging is an exercise in prayer.


Any suggestions of what to do beyond driving it into the river?

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'85 300D ~ 381k, HD Bilstien shocks, 27.50x8.50x14R General Grabber AT2 tires, 4 E-Code headlight upgrade with 90/130w bulbs, boost turned up, new timing chain, and injectors. SOLD

'85 CJ7 ~ OM617 swap, Tarus electric fan, T5 trans, Dana 300, 4.88 R&P, Mile Marker locking hubs, ALDA removed, AMC 20 rear disk brake conversion, Aussie locked with 33's and 5" Rough Country lift.