Fear not, my fine Internet friends! The saga is continuing, it's just happening at the pace of a scalded sloth. I finally remembered that I needed to get the crank to the machine shop AND had the time to do it during the hours that he's open. It seemed like the only times I would remember that I needed to run it over there were in the middle of the night or when I was stacked with meetings and couldn't get away. At any rate, I dropped it off yesterday and heard back in the late afternoon that the crank is grooved pretty badly. I can't remember the exact numbers that he gave me, but when I told him that the thickest bearing I could get was a .5mil oversize and that I didn't know what that was in old money, he told me I was out of luck. My next stop is a guy over the river who can add material to the journal and then we can turn it back down to standard size. My machinist is running his guy down - apparently he's reasonable but doesn't work too fast, which is just fine with me.

In talking to the machinist, he said that he had to do the exact same thing to a crank for a Sprinter not that long ago. That makes him the 4th OM642 that I am aware of that has eaten its #2 rod journal. Now, it wouldn't be all that strange to see wiped bearings across the board, given the terrible oiling system that was employed by Mercedes in these engines. And I realize that I'm looking at a fairly small sample size here. But it still makes me go "hmmmmm" to see four crapped out engines that all lost the #2 con-rod bearing in basically the exact same way. It makes me wonder if there's a defect in the oiling passage that causes it to get clogged easily. If it were a problem with pressure, I'd expect to see wear on the crank that got worse the farther you got from the pump, and that's not the case - it's really just that one cylinder.

For now, though, it's onward we wait. When I hear back on how much it's going to cost to weld up the journal and turn it back down, that will set the stage for the future of der Scheißewagen. There's no version of reality where I pay $2k-$3k for a new crank, so if it's not relatively cheap to repair the crank I have it's probably not worth doing much more than parting it out and chopping up the shell.

 

I stumbled across your saga (sounds much like mine) as I embarrassingly forgot which crank bridge bolts were supposed to have the threaded end (google images brought me to you, ha ha). Anyhow, I had three or four machine shops turn me away as they didn't want to do the work, but one shop referred me to a machinist on the south side of Indianapolis as he was the only guy in town with a line hone (mind you, this is Indianapolis and we have machine shops and race teams scattered everywhere, so I'm not sure that was 100% true). The guy I ended up is very old school, and not fast, no time to blow smoke up anyone's, but he got it done 10over on the rods and mains, line honed, and did the seals on my heads all for less than 1k out the door. I used to use a guy in madison when I worked down there that was just as old school that could probably get it done as well. There is no reason to pay thousands for a new crank. Just thought I'd send it out in case you'd not found a source/lost confidence in the job.

Rumours

 

Well, hello there, neighbor! I'm just down I74 from you so if I had to look around for machine shops, driving parts up to Indy wouldn't be a challenge at all. Assuming I drive my Ford, of course! While I pretty much assume that whatever they do in a machine shop involves black magic and incantations from the Necronomicon, I'm with you in assuming that a line hone was one of those operations that was on everybody's value menu. If you don't mind me asking, what failure mode did yours present with?

I have not given up nor have I gone out and bought a new crank. I give the machine shop a call every couple months and the last update I got about two weeks ago was that my crank was welded and it was proceeding to the next step - I was a little unclear if that would be some sort of treatment/coating or turning it back down. Basically it was still moving through its process at some geological speeds but progress was being (slowly) made. By all accounts this is a classic example of the old "good, fast, cheap: pick two" adage and I've picked good and cheap. Until I have the crank back in my hot little hands I'm not doing an iota of work on or buying any parts for der Scheßewagen just in the off chance that something winds up going wrong along the way.

 

Apparently the great machine shop backup of 2020/2021 was caused by a really talented guy getting hit with cancer and having to focus on his health. That caused my crank to get caught in a little bit of limbo and then everybody else got a little backed up since he was out. The wait is just fine by me, doubly so knowing the cause, but I got the call today that my crankshaft is fully repaired and ready to be installed. I think he said the mains were .50 over and the rod journals were .25 over, but I'll need to verify that before I buy my bearings and all that. I've got another minor project that has slipped in to take priority, but I'm planning to go over and pick it up either tomorrow or Friday and then hopefully next week I can start cleaning up the block and heads and ordering parts.

 

hope the guy recovers. But you need to get your car on the road or call it.

 

.deleted

 

It's ba-aack!

I had a minor detour on this project while I had to deal with some minor lubrication issues with its replacement vehicle - the Excursion needed a new oil pickup tube. But I was able to swing by the machine shop and pick up the crank. Not only is it all brandy-new-looking, it even has my initials engraved in it! Much fancy! Many bespoke!

New bearings and such are ordered, and I've been cleaning up the block getting it ready to be reacquainted with the crank. The gasket surfaces are all cleaned up and I've been doing chemical and mechanical cleaning of the oil passages in the block to make sure all the sludge and coked up oil is out. Then I'll give the pots a quick hone and then give the outside a bath. By the time it's all cleaned up, the first parts order should be in and I can start building it back up.

 

Christmas came LATE in KY, this year!

Do you have any plans to improve upon the sometimes "problem" areas of the accessory items? I installed an oil vapor collection systems after I replaced my intake runners, for example. For the oil cooler, I had my friend (who helped me with this one) use some gasket adhesive on the seals. But, I wonder if a block-off plate could be used and run a regular, run-of-mill (inexpensive) oil cooler out front by the radiator? It would just be a matter of plumbing, right? Or is there something I'm not thinking of?

 

My main mitigation plan involves disabling the EGR, swirl motor, and DPF but depending on what the whole AEM requirements are for the class-action settlement, that will probably have to wait until after I get everything together and have that work done. Putting in a air/oil separator sounds like a pretty good idea as well. I was considering building a halfway decent catch can for the PCV return line.

You could absolutely block off the water and oil ports coming out of the top of the block to run a conventional oil cooler. It's been a minute since I've looked for that sort of thing, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be too tough to find a port somewhere on the block to pick up an oil feed. I can't imagine that it would cause a problem for the oil pump but your oil capacity would increase a bit. You could even plumb in a water-to-oil cooler if the air-to-oil wasn't enough. That would eliminate that troublesome point if you either threaded the ports in the block or TIGed them shut. Although, I'm not entirely sure what the typical flow of the oil and coolant looks like, so just blocking them off might be problematic - if you were going to do that, you'd probably want to thread the ports out into an AN thread and put some piping in to connect the two sides. My plan, though, is to leave the oil cooler as the factory had it and use fresh Viton seals.

The other big mitigation point would be to increase the OCI to 3k miles and have a UOA done at least every other change. Ten thousand miles of city-type driving really allows the oil to get filled with soot and even a 5k interval might cause it to collect more than is really healthy.

 

It's been a while since I've updated this, but things are pretty positive. I had to send the crank back to the machine shop because they didn't turn it down to the right dimensions, but other than that the reassembly of the rotating assembly was pretty straightforward. That #2 piston was a bit messed up. I don't know if I dropped it or what, but when I went to install it I noticed that there was something that I guess I'd describe as a dent in the top. Also, the big end of the rod was pretty ovaled out. So a new piston and rod for #2.

Cleaning out the intake manifold - excuse me, the "charge air distribution lines" (eyeroll) - was a laborious task that used about a quart of simple green and hours of brushing and scrubbing. Since I was there anyway, I put new valve seals in and because there was evidence of contact with the pistons, I replaced all the valves on the right side of the engine.

The lower oil pan had to come off and back on twice due to leaks. The first time I was low on sealant and just didn't get enough of a bead in the back. The second time, I had managed to bend the lip of the pan when removing it. So that burned down and then fell into the swap. But the third time! That one seems to be holding oil.

Anothing important thing to check is that the left side swirl flap sensor is installed before you put the intake manifold - sigh. charge air distribution line - onto the head. The brackets for the EGR cooler get in the way and there is no way to snake the sensor through. I thought I'd get all sneaky and bend that bracket back a little. Once I started it up, though, I discovered that in the process the coolant tube on the front got moved around and tore its o-ring so I was spraying coolant everywhere. So don't do that, kids!

Before I decided to fix it, I started selling parts off of it so I no longer had a DPF, alternator, grille, or the batwing intake. Fine. "Clean air intake with MAF sensors". Anyway, I picked up the alternator and intake from an E350 in a yard in Columbus for about $125 and I was able to get a brand new grille from my local Mercedes dealer for $167 after tax. Used ones from junkyards were for sale for twice that! They're going to give me a brandy-new DPF (that actually works in all temperatures this time!) as part of the AEM, so I didn't bother replacing that.

In the process of unbolting or rebolting the fuel line to one of the injectors, I managed to crack the nipple for the return line (waste oil?) so I had a bit of a fuel leak. Instead of buying a used injector for $140 on eBay, I got 6 of them for a total of under $40 after tax off of an E320 at my local junkyard. Score! I was able to figure out how to recode the ECU with the injector code. I haven't figured out how to make it relearn the MAF sensors, though, so I've just got them unplugged.

With no MAP sensors, no O2 sensor, no NOx reading, no temperature reading, and, of course, no exhaust, it's a bit loud (a turbo IS a muffler!) and it's in limp mode. But I've put about 150 miles on it and it's running smooth. I have an appointment for Wednesday morning to drop it off for the AEM, Takata Explodybag, and the brake booster rustarama recall. I could have had an appointment sooner, but I wasn't about to not get a loaner car! Worst-case on the settlement check is that it will be enough to cover all the parts I bought and put $500 in my pocket!

I don't know if I'm going to get any flack from the dealer on the AEM, but so far this is looking like it's going to be a happy ending. Finally.

 

There’s a new Takata bag?

 

This is the original Takata bag recall. The recall came out after mine digested a bearing.

 

Use Diesel oil in that thing. I have been running Rotella T6 5W-40 for almost 100K miles (177K on the SUV) and feel much better about it, it is made for DIESELS. As a matter of fact I run it in everything I have with a crankcase with one exception, the wife's LS460. If they made it in a 5W-30 I would run it in her car too but it calls for 0W-20 (water). I do however run 5W-30 synthetic in her car, i just can't do the 0W-20 man.