Baltistyle

Hi everyone,

Ive had this project on the table for before my warranty runs out next august. For those of us with the m157, cylinder scoring might always be in the back of our minds. I have a stock 2013 s package wagon, which is the performance package with the 550hp stock tune. I changed my plugs about 12k miles ago so wanted to wait before going in and replacing them again. Since there are only 59 wagons from 2013, I look at this car as a keeper...as long as the cylinders look good.

I am halfway through the engine and wanted to share my progress so far. I think im about two hours in, including the boroscoping of the cylinders. Please take a look at the pics and vids below. One cylinder does have some oil on the cylinder wall so id like your opinions on that. Otherwise, this is a strong and healthy engine with great cylinder walls so far. Given that these four are great, do you think I should spend the time to do the other side now, or when I do the spark plugs next?

For context, I bought this car in 2019 with about 47k miles. Ive done check valves and tensioners, pcv valve, cams sensors and solenoids, resealed the cam covers. I have changed the oil at least every 4000 miles using Motul xcess 8100 sometimes with ceratec or mos2. This has been my favorite oil over Water One (mobil one), or Luiqimoly plus ceratec and mos2. I recently picked up some of the driven brand oil but have yet to try it. I also wonder if the restore and protect oil would clean up the pistons a bit.

We can see one open valve and its pretty furry...

I wonder about the golden clean spots on the pistons, which are seemingly normal and also about the crust on the undersides of the valves.

I don not have a scope that rotates so its a bit difficult to get it all.

Please let me know your thoughts and thanks.

Enjoy

Baltistyle

Looks like I had to post the vids on YouTube.

Sorry about the breathing, I dint realize it had sound and its hot as hell here and bending for an hour....





Where is this oil from? Stuck ring? Gasket? Suggestions?

PeterUbers

They look good and most important the car runs great. Here's a link to a thread you're well familiar with and commented in that has the Benz tech update on this with what is acceptable and unacceptable:

https://mbworld.org/forums/w212-amg/...ml#post8686246

Oil in cylinder; head gasket, valve guides....? Was the plug wet with oil?

Baltistyle

Yep, thanks Peter. Definitely familiar and it made me think that perhaps it would look worse on the inside. I think mine are very “good” looking. I think it’s just the oil I wonder about and if I can clean up what might be a dirty ring. I wonder if the oil valve being disconnected has any bearing on this…as a working theory is that the extra oil will clean up the rings a bit. I drive the car hard and up to temp every time I drive it, so that’s unlikely an issue.

PeterUbers

As I think about it, solenoid valve unplugged would affect all cylinders if that was a "thing" and it's not adding more oil just keeping it at normal oiling for all the rpm band; so imho not an issue causing this

Baltistyle

I agree, though the variable could be just a slightly increased pressure only effects the dirtiest rings, but in this case should help clean the rings.

Thanks Peter. I think it’s important that we document as much of this as we can since there aren’t exactly a ton of people doing this at home.

I also see you asked about the plug. The plug was a tiny bit dirtier in the threads, but was dry and white like the others. I will upload them later.

I also wonder about a head gasket. Since the spark plug tube was dry, I’m ruling out a valve cover gasket. As big a pain as the head gasket could be, I have fidelity platinum coverage so it’s “ok”.

I don’t plan on sealing this up yet, and may even venture towards a valve cleaning job.

PeterUbers

added to the sticky - thanks for this contribution

Baltistyle

Thanks Peter

Now I’m going down the rabbit hole of valve stem seals. Going back out to see if those valves were oily from above. No good deed.

I’ll try to get better pics. My inspection was more thorough than my video on demand skills.

timm206

Best way to asses cylinders is via the live feed you're getting from the borescope. In my experience the captured images/videos are lower res than live and hide many imperfections.

While live if you didn't see any issues then its good to go. If you want to be 100% sure, do a compression test for each cylinder with a mechanical gauge and not software. Thats what i did with mine after seeing some imperfections but at the end all cylinders were within 5psi of each other.

CaliBenzDriver

The Op shows pistons with clean/dirty contrast from oil wash. It looks well.

Can you get a 100% coverage of what is your concern (pistons/walls/valves):

• 8x pistons all around view
• 8x cylinder walls top + bottom
• with an emphasis on No 1+5 and 4+8.
• 16x intake valves relative cleanliness.

This way you can rank your cylinders.


Outcome:
You are looking to establish an overall condition report rather than searching for rod damages on cyl walls.

You want to be abble to appreciate the extent of what you see.

Good oil detergent is exactly what's going to cleanup and seal your rings.

Use an SP rated oil to prevent LSPI damage with hot oil traveling up over your pistons.

The hotest cylinders are going to have the most stuck-ring oiling issue. So your inspection will determine which cyl. are leaking.

Baltistyle

Thanks guys, Im happy with the condition of everything else I see except for this oil. I can see fully around the wallsIt looks like it is top down after sitting for the past few hours. Do we think this is valve stem or head gasket? I did check the plug and the tip is darker as Peter suggested it might be.

Adding some more pics of the cylinder. This is Cylinder seven

The motul is SP rated, been using since mid 2021









Leaking downward after I lowered the piston about four hours ago








Is the mineralization from LSPI? Literally looks like a piece of calcium. though it kinda looks like it is breaking away, cleaning up?



Number 7

CaliBenzDriver

I don't think the deposit/cleanliness is of any concern here. Once you stop burning oil it will self-clean.

I don't see evidence of bore scoring

What viscosity of MOTUL SP are you running?
The goal is to seal your cylinders with clean piston rings. This happens when oil viscosity cools the pistons enough to stop burning oil into carbon deposits.
-- 5w40 is definitely not enough viscosity
-- 15w40 is pretty good viscosity
-- 5w50 should be more consistent temps!

Assessing ALL cylinders lets you see how the ring cleaning is coming along... we'd rather see black piston tops than oil-washed leaky pistons.

Once your cylinders seal up, the ECU will enable more horses with evenly smooth crank timings. Uneveness de-tunes the mixture ECU can burn well.

Baltistyle

Ive been using 5-40 and happy to move up. Even this oil has been better than stock oil. I know it is the right thing to do but have wondered since in Maryland we do have four seasons and I drive all year round when the weather is nice. I dont drive it much, about 6k per year. its as cold as 0 and as hot as 100 degrees. which would be the better all around, the 5w50?

What do you think of the oil from the top. Valve guide, valve stem seal? The seal on that valve looks like it has a thick deposit. I know more viscosity would help there as well as cleaning can help. Since its under warranty its important to get it fixed and not just use a thicker oil. I do not know which are intake or exhaust though because of the weird orientation of the cameras on the scope.

CaliBenzDriver

Oil coming down the valve guide is marginal compared to stuck rings + PCV vaporized oil.

Intake vs. Exhaust valves: the intake valves are the one with a pair of socks on... more dirty than burned exhaust. Don't worry about that either!

The only issue here is... low oil viscosity burning as carbon deposit into rings groves - That unbalance engines cylinders - That uneven strain is bad for bearings (the metals pointed by oil analysis)

The key is to cool pistons enough that they stop burning oil at all.
Once cooling is sufficient, piston deposits will get removed instead of accumulated.
Not vaporizing oil means intake valves will stop building thicker deposits.

I am confident that MOTUL 5W-50 SP is going to perform that magic for you.
Currently I am running an HDEO 15w40 that is legendary for diesel detergents. It stands the heat well and its base-stock viscosity is high enough that it's holding up. Sort of a happy medium at this stage.
I expect viscosity to start thinning a bit later like it did with MOT.5w40.

The act of cleaning is a tough one because the priority is to lubricate not to remove oil film.

Whatever you decide... do not use "engine flush" as they screw-up lubrication film. Engines are better crusted in than sparkling.


If you've passed 3kMi on current 5W40: its a good time to up grade to quit accumulating carbon.

++++ Limited Oiling....
We are undoing the low viscosity, limited pressure oiling aftermath.
Luckily the cylinder bores surfaces are in good shape to seal.

Therefore your engine compressions should clean up to nearly new.
You'll notice improved response by ECU to reward your oiling choices.

Baltistyle

Thank you. I’ll be near 3k on the oil within the next month most likely and will switch up then. Reading about the many valve stem failures and knowing my 13 has never had a code (likely due to maintaining plugs) just has me asking the questions before the fidelity warranty expires, which if I can, I will re-up right before.

I will scope the other four cylinders in the morning and report back.

Thanks guys.

CaliBenzDriver

While you're in-there, give it a 100% coverage to know each cylinder relative condition:

1. piston all around
2. top wall all around
3. bottom wall all around
4. (intake valves)

No need to video all.... just take some personal notes or grade the condition ABCD...
Then next year or two you can visit only the worst cyl. to gauge improvements.

The other thing that not burning oil does is help cleanup UPSTREAM LAMBDA... good part to replace once you have better ring seals.
​​​​​​

Baltistyle

A comparison of the plugs at 58 vs 72k. The changes since that date have included switching from liquimoly (the correct one) plus ceratec and mos2 to the motul xcess gen2 5-40 as well as the oil valve mod about 1200 miles ago.

We can see that number seven is still the dirty cylinder.

it was suggested that some fuel injector cleaner may help with that dirty injector, which was the really dirty one shown in one of the videos. I don’t use it frequently but will for a little while.

Right now I’m really debating a walnut blasting because many of the valve stems are very dirty in my opinion. I will upload those pics later on once I download them. The intake manifold is so much work…

Here are the plugs


58k original plugs.




Seven is only dark on the one side shown yesterday



14k plugs installed by me. Now at 72k on the odo. Number seven is the dirty one.


More cylinder and valve pics to come

chassis

@Baltistyle Nice images. Which endoscope are you using?

Baltistyle

Pics upon pics























Perhaps the worst of what I saw,


Guessing this is carbon and not a scratch


a nice crosshatch picture


Looking very closely at the vertical line, it does not cross the plane of the crosshatch, do we agree?






This is bank one, after lowering the piston.


Techron???












with a closer look, im not sure I will walnut blast, but perhaps and light intake clean will help remove some of the wetter sludge

Baltistyle

Thank you. I am using amazons finest. The importance is a small enough scope for these thin plug holes. If I were to do it again, it would have a wider field of view and be rotatable from the screen, like the ones that you hold almost like a gun. Its VERY difficult to rotate the camera even with the side lenses. Our bores are not very deep not very friendly to access so I think these upgrades will help with an easier picture. Its been good but not perfect.

CaliBenzDriver

From what we saw...
the No1 issue is oil in cylinders.

I think the grey spark plug and the not so clean valve stems are way down the list.
The best is no cylinder grooving.



white pieces inside combustion chamber...

the only white material mixed with oil is not carbon nor hydrocarbon deposit I'm guessing this is CERAMIC-TEC deposited on valves.
The way piston leave significant oil behind all the way up to the top of cylinders make it sound like piston wip-holes are plugged up by Ceratec deposits. This is the kind of material particles that may plug up oil filter.

Baltistyle

Thanks Cali. That there are no grooves is what's most important to me and there's only a tiny bit of wear on seven. I was excited to see the crosshatching in relation to the vertical line. overall happy with the findings.

Ive stopped using ceratec, but not for very long long maybe a few thousand miles. I used it from 47-70k miles. The oil guru made me rethink some combinations of products for our alloys. The oil filters have always been very clean. I also think the deposits look like ceratec that so thanks for confirming. there's even a bit of orange on one or more of the valve.

Do we think that the oil switch to 5-50 will clean all/ most of this up in the ring grooves, combustion chamber?I know valses are a different thing. Ive used ceratec for years without issue but these valves clearly have a deposit and that white mineral flakes off. Ive read that its zinc and calcium, two hot button minerals we talk about with oils now. I know the recommendations against a flush, but any other products out there to try before I button it up? Because I dont put on lots of mileage, anything to speed the process safely is on the table. I can flood the cylinders with berrymans and vac out, do a shorter oci or whatever.

Thanks again.

CaliBenzDriver

You are right, that's the question to research.

I am not familiar on how to remove Ceratec deposits - Many ppl must have delt with 25kMi of white buildups.

The priority is to seal the rings for maximum compressions and stop the oil from layering more deposits in the combustion chamber.

The valve stems and pistons are ok as is.
​​​​​
Right now the piston rings can't drain oil they wiped. We see a fair amount of oil ends up all the way near the top of cylinder.

How to loosen the Ceratec buildup out of the ring grooves ???

I like your idea of soaking cylinders with some type of solvent for couple days then drain crankcase with cheap oil couple times. Hopefully that won't impact cylinder walls afterwards.


5W-50 and loose contaminants...
There is a risk that contaminants stored by the cup around the bypass valve will get a free-pass around filter and go plug one of your squirters... you won't want to chance that while we see Caratec floaters actively circulating, right?

Baltistyle

Continuing on, in the interest of science I could not leave well enough alone and

Holy smokes!



While the plugs were out I decided to use sea foam in the cylinders and allow it to soak overnight, rotating the engine a bit during that time.

While some may not venture into this, I have no fear with these products when applying them correctly.

I made sure to check cylinders for fluid before replacing the spark plugs. I made sure indexing was spot on since the torque values are not enough to get them correctly indexed. Plenty of threads on that.

After starting the engine there was ton of burned off product. If you have ever used seafoam before you know in some cars, you may not get any smoke and in others, you might get the whole neighborhood filled with smoke. My neighborhood was not happy I went for a slow warmup and then sustained spirited drive in the highway to get everything very hot.

The next day I used a berrymans intake cleaning kit with pea and added some of their fuel system cleaner as well. This process created an extreme amount of smoke during the application phase. The engine did not shut down at all. Having used these products in the past for other cars, i follow the process carefully and don’t really worry. After applying the product, I let it sit for about thirty minutes and started right up then went off for a drive. I did have three logged misfires and got a check engine light, which is normal. Make sure to keep the revs up a tiny bit so it can burn off the solvent. The car did not go into limp mode or anything like that. Came home, reset the light.

The next morning I used a liqui moly engine flush. The engine is clean besides the valves so I was not too worried about any clogging. The process is done at idle and when hot. I monitored the car during the 20 minute idle and not issues or hiccups. After this I immediately changed the oil. I did not go to the heavier weight oil at this time because I had a brand new case of driven and I’m going to use that for a short OCI over this week and then put in some thicker oil.

There was zero debris of any type in the oil filter or oil. The real exercise here was getting all of the ceratec out of the engine. I realized that I probably overdosed it a little bit and many times use a top extractor so this time I went in from the bottom and really made sure to get all that ceratec out of there. I do frequent oil changes every 3500 to 4000 miles, but was also adding ceratec much more frequently than their recommended interval. That’s the only thing you could see in the oil.

So

Well all I can say is the car runs fantastic. The car is extremely smooth and one of the things I’ve noticed is very slow speeds and the car shifting up more quickly. Just driving through the neighborhood. The car shifted up to fifth gear by 30 miles an hour.

I can say I will use the berrymans as a maintenance item. These di engines are dirty. All the breakdown videos confirm it, and mine confirms it for me. Perhaps it’s not a big issue, but it can be avoidable. Clean our rings, thicker oil and clean valves will go a long way. I'm Very happy I chose to do this cleaning. I will report when I change to thick oil and peek back in the cylinders.

For the brave. I’m open for questions about the process. I’m not here to debate “snake oil”



Sea foam with a spray paint adapter and a fluid film wand. Sprays forwards and on sides.

This is where the berrymans went in. It’s metered and takes about 15 min at idle.

WRC-LVR

After treatment pics of the cylinders will provide visual proof the ceratec deposits have been reduced or nearly eliminated which is what you were after, And peace of mind to you regarding the cylinders health. Like Calibenzdriver...I would swap to the 15W-50 ASAP sooner than later ...then do a check using the scope for the valve seals.

Since you live in the Rust belt perhaps having an engine block heater may be worth it if you dont have a heated garage...

This is a great thread and unlike others the detailed testing and pics are great for others who are on the fence to disabling the oil control solenoid. It also give a basic how to to diagnose the valves, pistons, bores and valve seal on these engines

Thanks for posting up!!