They Said it Can't be Fixed - A Journey to the Inside of a Mercedes Bluetec

In reply to wae :

I've bought this list of parts:

check if you really need new piston rings. how many Km does your engine has?

I still need to buy new Connecting rod bolts locally as i didnt find them online solo, just as part of a kit. they cost about 3€ each.

These are Mercedes original manufacturers.

As for the cost of a new cranckshaft, I only found a new one for 2k. 100€ was the used connecting rod i've bought.

This is the reason for repairing mine.

Check autodata to find the torques and highlights you need and witch bolts have to be replaced.

In reply to wae :

If I suddenly found myself in your shoes today, I'd take the easiest, quickest exit ramp out from this pile.  Seems as though both paths lead to about the same financial end point.

Spend your precious (& limited) wrenching time working on something motorsports related you enjoy.

berkeley this thing, part it on ebay and crush the hulk.  Listen to Brian.  

TurnerX19 said:

In reply to wae :

Look closely at your old head gaskets. There is a fair chance you will find a Victor/Reinz logo on them. Good stuff.

was gonna say same thing.  I know VR is an OE supplier, but i don't have details re what applications they're OE on.

Well, getting rid of der Scheißewagen as quickly as possible would be a train that has not only already left the station, but has also arrived at the other station, gone back and forth a few more times, been decommissioned from service, sold for scrap, melted down, and is now part of a refrigerator somewhere in South America.  So, I've got that going for me.

Looking at that list led me to the Elring parts catalog, which leads me to discover that despite Elring specifying parts for my specific make/mode/engine code (642.824), not every seller of parts includes my model as compatible.  Which is interesting and slightly irritating.  With Elring part numbers in hand now, I'm searching around to see what the cost differential is if I source by part number instead of trying to find resellers that have this in their database.  And I'm having a little bit of success.  I'll report back what I find.  Again, if the financials can get a little more reasonable, then I'm a bit more interested.  Mainly because I have deeply-rooted insecurities left over from my childhood that drive me to prove that I can make this work.  You know, if we're being honest about the whole thing.

On the topic of piston rings.  I've got 125k miles which at today's exchange rate should be 201,100kms give or take a couple grams?  Strictly speaking I don't think there's anything wrong with the existing rings - same thing with the timing chain and oil pump.  I just always thought that those were parts that if you had them off anyway you might as well get new ones.  Maybe in this case the $200 isn't worth it?

FKUA said:

In reply to wae :

If you are scared of screwing things up just "think twice, work once" this is not rocket science although this engine runs like one.

I have nothing useful to add as usual but am amused that this seems to be the motto of everyone who winds up resurrecting a modern Benz. 

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

FKUA said:

In reply to wae :

If you are scared of screwing things up just "think twice, work once" this is not rocket science although this engine runs like one.

I have nothing useful to add as usual but am amused that this seems to be the motto of everyone who winds up resurrecting a modern Benz. 

It's one of those hard lessons that you only learn after you own a Mercedes.  You first learn that you should have known to "think twice, buy once" and then you begin to apply it to other areas of your life.

I would definitely put rings, chains and an oil pump on it. What you have is likely fine, but why skip such a cheap step when it's so easy right now?

Unless you're flipping it, that is. If you're planning to flip it then wad up some cardboard to replace the bearings and send it.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

Ooh, cardboard for the bearings and maybe an old mouse pad for the gaskets!

On a totally unrelated note, interested in buying a Mercedes SUV?  Fresh rebuild!  No reason to bring that up right now, just kind of popped into my head!

I've been doing more digging and found a few things out....  These parts catalogs continue to be really weird.  It looks like the Mahle/Clevite/Victor Reinz piston ring set I found is not actually for this particular iteration of the OM642?  Mahle doesn't seem to make them, but Goetze does.  I'm a little bit afraid to try to go to their website and find their parts catalog, though.  The good news, is that they're about $40 bucks less than I had budgeted.  The Iwis timing chain that Pellican Parts sells does not appear in the actual timing chain product catalog from Iwis, so that's weird.  Also, it appears that Victor bought Reinz but then Mahle came along and bought them both.  Or, perhaps, the other way around, but I found one gasket that said it could come in a Mahle box or a VR box, so there you go.

It looks like I have the parts down to about $1600 now, not including the machine work or the stuff I need to re-buy...  Maybe maybe...

Just read this whole thread and I'll say you've got some patience for sure.  My wife has the 2011 GL350 and loves it.  It's done great for our family.  BUT, had I known the issues with the BlueTec engines ahead of time I would have bought the GL450 we actually test drove.  We bought it CPO and I normally don't do extended warranties but for this we did and completely dodged a bullet by doing so.  Long story short the dealer did a complete engine replacement at 101,000 due to a failed piston.  We had seven months of warranty remaining and that covered the $30k bill.

Before that engine failure we had warranty work done to replace every NOx sensor, oil cooler lines and seals twice, the turbo inlet tube that sits under the intake, and a couple other things.  After the warranty expired I also had to have the DEF tank heater replaced.  Nevermind all the other wear items that all cars go through.  Seems like every year there's a big expense involved with the thing and now that it's out of warranty I do it all myself when I can.  Every time a warning light comes up I just want to light it on fire and get something newer.  Wife loves the car though so I replace whatever and move on.

One thing I did after the engine replacement though is I started using Amsoil 5W-40 European formula synthetic.  We're up to 150,000 miles now so 50,000 on the new engine and so far so good.  I'll be following along to see what the final outcome is.  If it were mine it would have been parted out or otherwise gone long ago.  

In reply to wae :

Hey!!! Any news?

Nothing yet.  I need to run the crank over to the machine shop, but my day job keeps getting in the way!

Following. Make sure you mic everything after it comes back from machine shop. 

Its going....

wae (Forum Supporter) said:

 

Piston number 5 seems a bit... Wobbly.  It's also free of carbon, relatively speaking, and it kind of looks like the valves have been striking the piston

In hindsight, the noise was at half engine speed because the piston was being held away from the head at TDC compression by air pressure.  At TDC exhaust, no pressure in the cylinder, so the piston was free to get all thwacky.

I finally had time to run the crank over to the machine shop this morning.  I should hear back from them in about a week as to what they think they can do with it.

They can make a broach, or a pterodactyl, or a doorstop....

In reply to eastsideTim :

E36 M3, if they tried to use it as a doorstop, the lock mechanism would probably freeze up, the pins would fall out of the hinges, and the framing would collapse.

Despite telling me that Tom was backed up pretty bad and not to expect to hear anything for about a week, I just got a call back.  I'm kind of numbertarded so I don't remember what he told me it was gouged down to, but the net is that even with a .5mm oversize bearing, it's no good.  This isn't the first one of these out of an OM642 that he's seen, though - and he said the last one was the #2 journal as well, so that's kind of telling - and he's got a guy over the river that can weld it up and then he'll turn it back down.  He's going to try to get in touch with him and he'll let me know what I'm looking at.

So, having read the whole saga, do you think that if you had had an endoscope you would have been able to discern the wear and slop of the piston by rocking the crank back and forth?

If not a 'scope, then a suitably long piece of welding rod or such?

May be a good thing to have out there on the internet for anyone that runs into this on their motor.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I'm not 100% sure, but I think you're probably right.  Putting a dowel or welding rod down the injector hole and putting some pressure on it while bringing the piston up from dead bottom would likely have shown the amount of deflection due to the missing bearing.  But the real clue would have been the valve marks on the piston crown.

Otherwise, still just waiting to find out what the crank work will cost me.  If it weren't for the covid-pocolapyse going on, I would totally see about trying to find a cheap flight to Portugal with my crankshaft as my carry-on!

Oh, Rock Auto!  Why do you tease me so?

What about finding another used core engine or one out of a wreck and scavenging useful parts?  It may require a balance job at the end but it might be cheaper than welding up a crank which may or may not happen based on what the man says.  The welded crank will require hardening afterwards as well.  If you could find another core, some bottom end disassembly might reveal an engine with less catastrophic damage so you could refresh that one instead.

Hey guys,

Just an update,

-Cat and DPF removed

-EGR OFF

-EGR Water/Air coller removed.

-Swirl valves and motor removed.

Bolts to close Swirl valves Holes and one bolt from the inside to close water that goes to Air/Water EGR cooler.

Does anyone know where this plug goes?

Can't find where to connect it! maybe when i put the engine back it connects with something..

@wae

Did you get your crankshaft fixed? Any News?

In reply to FKUA :

Were you able to find a tune that would delete the EGR, DPF, and M55?  I've done some looking around and haven't been able to find anyone that can do that for the GL350.  There was an ebay seller that appears to offer that, but I never heard back from my inquiries and I'm pretty sure that I don't want to deal with someone that can't answer a fairly basic question.  I could live with the swirl motor and all its crap, but taking the DPF our would let me run a real oil in the thing and eliminating the EGR would keep the whole thing from getting plugged up with soot so it might actually become slightly reliable at that point.

I have not yet heard back on my crank repair.  I'm going to give the machinist a call before I leave for Gainesville this week and see what's up.  Yours is looking great all cleaned up like that. but I'm not sure what that plug is for.