Car is back home on my driveway now. I have ensnared a work colleague to help me push the car back into the garage this evening. Going to try a few things on the weekend, and have another mechanic buddy help, but if there's no luck, the 55's gotta come out and the 43's going back in. Boo. Very depressing, very sad.

 

Sorry to hear that and I understand how you are feeling at the moment. If this happened to me, I would be darn furious...
However, I am thinking more and more that the problem is not with the "internals" of the engine, but more to the peripherals. Like MarcusF suggested, the problem could be ignition related. Have you closely checked the spark plug connections and which wire goes to which plug. Firing order also, but I think you already checked that. As our engines are dual plugs, could you have crossed the plug wires from one cylinder to another? Above all, keep the spirit up. I am relatively certain that the problem is looking you in the eyes but you can't (havn't) seen it for the moment. What if the 43 does the same thing if you switch it back?

P.S. I don't see the fire being a cause for the engine not firing correctly. Not enough heat damage IMO

 

Vince, please please double check the connections in the picture below, if nothing just for my sake. I had this thread in mind as I did my conversion (so much so I took the pictures) and having these swapped could very well be the cause of your grief. I even made sure to leave the metal retaining clip off the injector plug so I didn't cross them on re-install.

 

Mixing up the connector between the injector and the vacuum operated actuator controller thingy? I looked at that several times, I'm fairly certain I have that on correctly but I will double check.

 

What colour wiring do you have for the actuator vs the injector connector?

 

A) The Actuator got (6) Wires:

1) Blue
2) Purple
3) Silver
4) Black
5) White
6) Yellow

B) The Injectors connectors got #: "203 545 05 28", also the Intake Manifold & Knock sensors got the same #, the injector

connectors got a green seal inside it, but the intake manifold & knock sensors got Red or sometimes Black......

1) Gray+Black
2) Gray+Red
3) Gray+Green
4) Gray+Blue
5) Gray+Yellow
6) Gray+Purple
7) Gray+Brown
8) Gray+Pink

* some models got different order of injector #s, depend of the Vin#s, all M113s wire colours are the same......

ZAYED,,

 

The injector is grey / grey + yellow
The actuator is grey / grey + red

 

Nah, I'm pretty sure that's not the problem I have. I looked at it last night, and I think I'm good with the wiring there.

 

Okay, I'm giving myself until tomorrow afternoon, and if nothing can be figured by then, unfortunately, I'm going to pull the 55 out and get the43 back in. The only worry after that is if it STILL doesn't start!!

So tomorrow I will get the valve covers off both motors, get them to the cam locked positions and check the lobe positions. Jeffrey (ProjectC55's tech) advised me to check the check them, as there is a potential for the lobes to have shifted - they are pressed onto the hollow camshafts apparently. We'll see. The plan is to get both motors to the appropriate position, and then just see if the lobes on the 55 are obviously out of place compared to the 43. I think it's a longshot, but I'm running out of things to check.

I will also get the intake manifold off, plug off the runners with duct tape, and then shoot some compressed air into the throttle body opening to see if there are any obvious leakages. As I said, I'm running out of things to check!! Wish me luck!!!

 

Today I checked out those two last things I set out in the previous post. No joy. There was just a very small leak on the intake manifold, but only on one section, and certainly not big enough to cause the issues I've been having.

Unscientifically, I then removed the valve covers off both motors and rotated them to the WIS specified spots to compare - but they are roughly similar, ie. the same rocker arms up and down in the same locations, etc.

At that point I thew the towel in, very sad. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting the 55 out of the car. I've done it so many times now, it's getting to be cake for me now! Still doesn't take the gloss off not having a W202 C55 though...bleahs. My big worry now is if the 43 doesn't work when I get it back into the car...if that doesn't work out, then I'll just part the car out. Fail.

And coincidence or not...but I had Guns n Roses on, and the track that was playing whilst I was pulling the engine out? "I Used to Love Her, but I Had to Kill Her."

 

This is sad. I've literally followed this post on every post you've made hoping
for a positive outcome.

Why would the old 43 engine get you worried? Did you muck around with it?

 

This is so depressing. Also been following this whole long ordeal. And of all the people for this to happen to you don't deserve it! After taking such amazing care of your car and attention to detail on cleaning every little thing on this car and documenting it all for us, you deserve to have a beast of a C55.

Good luck with the 43

 

I haven't done anything to the 43 motor, I'm just being paranoid / very worried that there is something 'up' with the car, and not either motor!

Have already started contemplating my next car, as even if I do get the C43 running again, I will likely flog it ASAP so I can get into something newer.

I did drive a W203 C55 on Saturday, nice car, but that particular one was a bit rough and high mileage. Curbed wheels, knicks on the calipers, chunk missing off the lower portion of the front bumper, obliterated lower fender liner, etc etc. Just didn't seem like the first owner really cared. But I do like the W203 C55 in general, nice ride and more interior / electronics features. Also considering an E60 545i. The boss has one, and they are nice cars, very comfy, lots of features like factory nav, Bluetooth, etc etc.

There's also a nicely modified E39 M5 available, but I worry about the carbon build up issues for which those engines are known. Thought about a B6/B7 S4, very cool especially in Avant bodystyle, but then I read about their timing chain tensioner / chain guide issues, and to fix that, the engine has to come out. Which of course led me right back to Mercedes lang and the venerable M113 engined cars. There are some W211 E55s getting really cheap now locally, but I'm afraid those are headaches waiting to happen, with air suspension and loads of other features that can go wrong. Can't abide by one of the three instrument cluster dials being a clock either. Leaning towards a W203 C55 if I can find the right one....

 

Please,dont give up so close to the finish!.

If you do im sure you will in time look back and regret not sorting what is likely to be a minor issue.

I certainly regret giving up my project so close to the end.


Paul

 

Oh dude, I would love to have the car running with the 55, but it's just not working! And for the life of me, I can't figure it out, and neither can experienced Mercedes techs, nor my mechanic friends either. Boo!!! I've been over every single inch of the motor, as have the techs, and we can find nothing wrong. That's the scary bit.

I would like nothing more than to have it running and driving it now, but I can't put much more time into it, not with winter approaching - and I don't have a heated garage. As it is, both stalls in my garage are filled with un-working cars, and that's not good. And I need something running so I can give my mother her car back that I've been borrowing.

 

As long as you're "trying on" cars, go drive a CLK63. The car is brutal.

 

I could say 99.9% sure the E55 Engine had problem before you bought it, believe me, no one had that damn mystery issue with C55

conversion, i could understand this Engine is not only fired, its also take a long long time in wet place after waterfall,, this is NOT your

or your mechanic mistake, i think you simply got a " cheaty cheaty" deal with that seller........

ZAYED,,

 

Vincent,
Have you any idea or proof the engine was perhaps taken apart and badly rebuilt perhaps? Well if the 43 works fine, guess it would be a good choice to try and get to the bottom of things by pullling that spooked 55 motor to pieces to check.

 

When you lined up the engines did you look to see if the gap for the crank sensor was in the same place?
If not there's the 'problem', be it either damaged crank, wrong crank, or different by design

 

I haven't checked the gap on the shutter wheel - the 43 currently is mounted to a stand on the flywheel end, so I don't even have the flywheel mounted right now. I'll double check that when I get down to removing the accessories off the 55 - tonight.

No sign the engine was ever apart. The melted wiring harness that was still attached to the motor upon delivery would seem to indicate the engine came from a running car and was removed for salvage.

Thanks everyone for commiseratin'. Very sad time. I started the swap project back in July with the aim of having it all sorted out by September - so I wouldn't have to work on the car in the cold! And here I am in late October and it's getting cold!! All that work....sigh.

New car requirements for me - 300hp+, sedan, 4 doors, German, V8. Pretty specific criteria, but since I've had the C43, I don't want to get anything 'lesser'. I would prefer AWD, but I will live with RWD, as really the only car that fits these criteria plus AWD is the S4 and I don't think it makes a welcoming, long term ownership prospect. The E39 M5 is tempting, but research into their carbon build up issues is frightening too. Another SUV is excessive, given that we already have a lovely one and I see no need to have two large vehicles. I dig the E60 545s, nice ride, but my heart is into the small sedans with big engines, and hence the C55 AMG. C63s are out of my budget at the moment, just waiting for their values to drop enough...

CLK63s are few and far between here. In fact, I'm fairly certain Canada only got the CLK63 in cabrio format. The awesome CLK63 Black Series is not an official import, and isn't even on the list of permissible vehicles allowed for import from the US, but I do hear of a few that have successfully made it over and have been locally registered...on another note, the only bad thing about the CLK63 Black Series is the existence of the CLK DTM AMG. Kinda like the only bad thing about the S4 is the existence of the RS4....

 

Sorry to keep throwing ideas at you here, but if the sensor gap positons match on the flywheels, I would be inclinded to try the 43's knock sensors - as pretty much everything else has been checked. Their job is to detect knock and adjust the timing accordingly. Maybe the 55s are damaged and sending out errant signals. I dont know. But if I were in you shoes I would make damn sure I knew what was causing the problem before switching back to the 43. One last thing -I would also remove the crank front pulleys and check the positions of the woodruff keys relative to the flywheel too.

 

I also thought the same thing. Knock, cam and speed sensors are ALL the same on BOTH 113.980 and 113.944 engines. But I don't remember if Saab had not already switched the sensors from one to the other due to the fire incident. That 55 engine should be submitted to some Vodoo magic perhaps or else it is trying to tell you something... Will be interesting to find out what's going on inside.

 

I had a good look at the knock sensors, nothing seemed amiss. And it's a tad too late to try running the motor with the old knock sensors installed - both motors are out of the car now. But I would doubt the knock sensors would not allow the motor to run to that extent, you'd think it would throw some sort of code. The wiring leading to the knock sensors themselves was not really damaged on the 55's harness, the fire seemed to have been localized around the fuel rail area. Jeffrey was pessimistic on the knock sensor issue too. Their job is to cut timing if knock is detected, but it should still be suitable to actually just RUN the motor, you know?

I also thought about the crank pulleys being off too, but I doubt that as well. The fact that the crank pulley timing marks lined up nicely on the timing cover seems to indicate it's in the proper position.

I am going to look at another W203 C55 on Saturday, and perhaps a 545 after that. Decision has to be made, as I don't want to be freezing my *** off in the winter pulling motors and whatnot over and over again. You know how the garage floor is cool in the summer time? It's friggin' freezing cold in the winter!!

 

Man, am I tired! Spent a considerable amount of time this past week and on Sunday transferring all the accessories and such back to the 43 motor. The accessories weren't too bad, but removing all the gasket sealant on the lower oil pan (so I could get the 43's original pan, equipped with the oil pan heater) back onto the 43 was a pain.

Also a pain was cleaning up the years of gunk and crap around the front and rear main seals, put new ones in on the 43 of course. Now the motor is all dressed again, and will be popping it back into tonight with some help from a friend.

Now to get it running and to find a buyer...

 

you are throwing in the towel on the whole thing?