1993 300SD smokes.....Bill you have the www site?

350SD had rod problems don't think the 300s for the years your asking for are a problem rod wise

the case, minus a few cans!

That would be nice, but no such luck, their both the same engines. I don't know why the 92' and 93's were called 300 instead of 350SD's, I think it had to do with marketing, since the old 126's 300SD's had a very robust reputation. Thanks for your prompt reply anyway, It's almost silly that I post in the first place since I make my living operating a very successful Mercedes service and repair facility. But honestly, we have not come across any bent rod M603's and since I pulled the head on mine tonight and didn't see any obvious internal leaks I'm sort nervous. Tomorrow I'm gonna clean the valve seals to see if they were dry rodded or cracked, if they are than that would be sufficiant enough to cause oil to leak into a cylinder or two. The head gaskets are also famous for that, and this gasket was socked pretty good near # 1 cylinder, but then the only question remains why it would only smoke within a mile or two in the mornings. I will keep "alt.auto.mercedes" posted on the outcome, it will be about a week before the car is back on the road again, among the cylinder head I will also install new motor mounts, flex pipe, brakes all around. Regardless of play, the valve guides are gonna be replaced with the first oversize just to be safe. Cheers. Martin. Autobahn Auto

Will send you a picture of the original connecting rod and its "new" replacement.

Lambach

I am not a Mecedes mechanic, but I am a diesel mechanic and I find this thread interesting. On the '92 300 diesel you repaired-- the black smoke upon startup sounds more like a sticking turbo than the loose valve guide you found. On your engine: You are burning oil. I realize that pulling the engine, dropping the pan and popping out the pistons is

10 times more work than just R&Ring the head, but that is what you need to do if you want to do it right the first time. Inspect the rods and pistons, and if they are good and the cylinders aren't too worn, just hone it out and put new rings on the old pistons. If you don't want to do this you can check for a bent rod by checking the piston travel at the top of the stroke. Also, I wouldn't force oversize valve guides into the head without mic-ing out the holes and putting the correct size in. I just did the head on my '84 300D TD and only the intake valve guides were shot, so I replaced them with std. size guides and left the exhaust guides alone. I also re-ringed the old pistons and honed out the clyinders. Runs great and no smoke. This was done at 264,000 miles.

--Geoff General Diesel Service, CA

Bnzmn600 wrote:

Geoff, Your 1984 is a 617 engine, cast iron cylinder head, these 603, 602, and 601 diesel engines from Mercedes have aluminum heads of which the later generation (1991 through 1995) love to create lose guides. The 1992 300D I did for a customer last week had this very repair done 5 years ago, I know because the shop that did it came to me for advice, so they replaced only the guides that were lose than, and volar 5 years later ended up in my shop. So when I pulled those guides (all of them) I found three different materials used, some guides were cupper, some metal with cross marks, some metal with no marks (originals) and some were brass. That's how know that they only fixed the lose ones. I replaced them all with the next oversize (the only way the dealer will sell them for these engines) original size's are only available aftermarket. And by the way, this morning I punched out two of my valve guides, one intake and one exhaust just to see how tight they were, I was able to punch the intake out with 3 easy hits, the exhaust 2 hits, so there you have it, they would have pupped lose eventually. Yes 617 engines...piece of cake did one 3 years ago, metal fatigue one guide worn completly causing the exhaust valve not to seal during warm up, I replaced one guide, one valve, all the valve seals, and even today the runs runs great and didn't have a re-accurence. P.S I called the dealer this morning with the engine number, yes my engines is listed as the trouble maker and should have all the rods replaced, checked with another source in germany...dito same answer. Cheers. Martin Autobahn Auto

Folks, Totally forgot to update everyone. The valve guide replacement was a total success, although it took a little driving over the weekend but make sure the head was broken in again. This morning I only had a slight fog of greyish smoke, but no oil burning on start up. P.S, Injectors are next, motor mounts and flex pipe are ready to be installed. Cheers. Martin. Autobahn Auto