AMGDave

Good article on EHA function & adjustment:

http://w124-zone.com/articles.php?article_id=26

Regsitration required to view the above article, btw.

Saijin_Naib

Hm, that looks interesting. I'll see if maybe its just the O-Rings. As I stated earlier, it smells quite strongly of fuel in the distributor area, it is entirely possible its leaking out.

chlippo

that thread is nice and completely accurate to me.

brett you can try to remove the air filter assembly and turn your car on, then check out if the eha leaks from somewhere. When it was leaking in my case, it was pretty obvious by the touch of it a few minutes after the car is on

read this too about the injectors that we talked about

http://w124-zone.com/articles.php?article_id=39

as i said the cheapest i found was 25$ for one injector (you would still need the seals)

Saijin_Naib

Hm, thanks Chlippo. I'll look into that as well.

Guys, what does it mean when (after tightening up my throttle cable yesterday), my idle sits properly where it belongs during warm-up and during driving, but after driving and bit and putting it into park, the car jumps up to 2k RPM solid.

Is the cable binding or something? If I turn off the ignition and turn it back over (having not moved or anything), it will then sit properly at 800ish RPMs.

Shoomakan

Sai, don't laugh at this...

I had a similar problem. Turned out the carpet was slightly restricting the pedal's movement... :P

Just double check.

Saijin_Naib

I'm going to facetable if that is the case. I don't think it is because turning the car off and back on will reset the idle rpms to where it should be (with literally nothing else changing, 2 seconds between cycling the ignition).

I've got two sets of the EHA seals on the way along with the thrust cut-off microswitch to see if I can't iron out some of the oddities I'm getting.

I was looking into rebuilding the Air Injection/Idle Speed control valve, and just the lines that supply it will total around 150$, nevermind the part itself.

Ugh. I wish I could get a definite diagnosis on this.

Saijin_Naib

Replaced:
EHA Gasket/Seals
Throttle Cut-off Microswitch

Notes:
EHA (mine) leaks even with new seals. It looks like it is shot and needs replacing.
Likely will try to do Fuel Distributor gasket and valves during that time of EHA replacement

Notes:
Engine Coolant tank is empty of coolant, approximately half full of oil.

Question:
Blown head-gasket? Engine doesn't overheat.

WDB124066

Oil is leaking into your water, classic head gasket failure.

chlippo

how much oil is your car eating between oil changes?

m103, and especially m104 24v is known to burn some extra engine oil specially when driven hard. it is even written in the car manual!
usually its around 1 liter for each 4500-5000 km (convert to miles/galons)

if its taking more than that , your hg is probably done, which is a common failure.

do you got some white smoke when reving your car on park or neutral?

Saijin_Naib

Around 2qts for a 500mi trip or so, so way over what is necessary.

A little white smoke, yeah. But I thought that head-gasket failures were always accompanied by heat issues?

But yeah, I've been getting excessive amounts of oil through my breather hose and my coolant tank is now full of oil so I guess the writing is on the wall.

My plan is to siphon the oil out of the coolant tank, put in water, and run the radiator system with the cap depressurized. Sound good?

chlippo

you can try to flush your cooling system but that wont change anything...a couple miles after that you will have the same issue again (oil in water) so imo its not worth the cleaning.

you will be able to run your car safely if you make sure always to check out and add oil/water.
of course the sooner you rebuild the engine the better it is

Saijin_Naib

I wasn't going to flush it, but just try to remove the oil that is there and replace it with water/coolant and run it depressurized so no more oil gets in there.

I'm not sure oil will be able to cool well enough :\

Yeah, I know. I need to seriously prioritize this repair.

AMGDave

Head gasket failures can have several different symptoms, but running too hot is not always one of them. Significant amounts of oil in the coolant is a bad sign, although if it was all going into the cooling system the tank would be overflowing, lol. At trace of oil in the coolant isn't necessarily a sign of doom though. Got a photo?

However: 2 quarts of oil per 500 miles? I don't think you mentioned that previously. That is BAD. And, not necessarily something a head gasket will fix. What viscosity oil are you using? When you pull the head, you may find those couple of low-pressure cylinders might indeed be toast...

bsmuwk

Save your money, buy a new engine and stick a new head gasket on THAT.
Use all your new parts on that new engine and call it a day. That kind of oil consumption is not good. You can keep your old engine as a practice engine to rebuild or sell it for scrap once you've stripped all the nice parts off of it.

AMGDave

+1. Sorry, Brett. 250 miles per quart is the death knell of any engine.

Drop in a used motor (you can get one for ~$1k) and call it good.

Saijin_Naib

Wait, I think I did the math wrong on that

My oil change interval at the shop I go to is about every 3000 miles.
I've had to put in about 3-4qts thus far, and I've got about 1000 miles to go.

Therefore, its about 1qt every 500-667 miles. Still not fantastic, I know. I'm using 10w40 regular oil, I stopped using Synth because of how often I had to top off (even more frequent than now if I recall correctly).

I pulled about 1L of what I'm guessing to be Oil+Coolant mix out of the coolant reservoir via Turkey Baster last night, to replace it with clean water. The car ran perfectly fine today, no temp hike/spikes at all, despite a 1.5hr highway commute.

Attached is a picture of the now (mostly separated) suspension. Am I right in thinking its engine oil + coolant? Or could it be trans oil as my mechanic suggested (sight unseen, I just called to ask for a head-gasket estimate).

AMGDave

Hard to tell from the photo, but is that red or brown/black? If you were losing that much ATF, your tranny fluid level would be WAY down. Check that first. If the trans fluid is clean and level is normal, it has to be engine oil.

250 mpq --> 500 mpq just upgrades you from terrible to just plain bad. Still needs a heart transplant.

RBYCC

Brett

Regretfully...

R.I.P.

Time for some engine work...

Ed A.

AMGDave

+1. May we have a moment of silence for Bucky's powerplant:

Saijin_Naib

LOL. Nice nice.

Though I never would have called it a powerplant

Seriously though, ****. This is going to be costly haha.

Yeah, the colors in the photo are pretty accurate. The top is black-brown and the bottom is a sorta orangey white. I checked the Trans Fluid dipstick with the engine off, and the level was fine and the fluid was a nice pink/red.

I was getting weird coffee with milk colored deposits in my airbox about a week or two ago, but no one commented upon that. I think that was advanced warning. What happened between then and now to finally kill it, I've not the foggiest. Unless it was my switch from my old (3psi max) coolant cap to my new (15ps max) coolant cap.

RHW

Crazy thought, why not drop moto crossing the car, and you'll likely get another 10-20k miles without spending but a few drops of oil (per foot)

Saijin_Naib

I've not AutoX'd since last summer though. I've been babying the car since after that I found it wasn't running right. And especially since the snow tires are on, I'm pretty conservative. Don't want to eat those up.

chlippo

i wouldnt say RIP but BRB

whats now? used engine or a rebuild.

If it was me, i would open the engine up and check the block/pistons/sidewalls before deciding to rebuild or the swap. Sometimes rebuilding a toasted engine is really not worth it

Saijin_Naib

Yeah, I've not decided quite yet. I'm leaning more towards rebuild myself, and my father feels the same way.

"Better the devil you know..." is the guiding philosophy at the moment. But you're absolutely right, if it is too far gone, a transplant may be the more logical/economical course of action.

Barring that, I may even be forced to change cars completely. I believe my father found a 1991 300ce in town in white which could be a surrogate for Bucky. Not what I'd like to do as I've got the 3.27 final and swaybars in, along with some other cosmetic mods, but it may have to happen if I'm to stay in a w124 coupe :\

bsmuwk

just swap parts.