Darn 3-wheel engine stands

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BillGrissom

BillGrissom

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Maybe I should have got a 4-wheel engine stand. Remember falling off a trike as a kid? Why Honda soon dropped their off-road trike "neck snapper". I was trying to unscrew the crank bolt and the jam rod I put on the rear popped off and engine sprung back. I move quick.

Didn't hurt the engine. Taking a break from my Mopars to fix my 85 Mercedes that has been in the garage for 3 yrs since the engine failed. I did buy an 84 for $400 to swap the engine, but ended up fixing the car (a son drives it). I got this engine for $300. New Mercedes pistons cost $550 each.
 

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I added a piece of tubing across the front of mine day one. Never installed any wheels.
 
Man, that coulda hurt, glad you are OK and the engine. Yeah, I would add a cross bar on the front of the single bar there.
 
I think you got an extra zero in that piston price. I can buy 300D pistons for 55 bucks each.

Glad you were not hurt with that engine stand.

B.
 
That's what you get for owning a Mercedes diesel. :) I have worked on my sister's 84 300SD more than I like to admit. I do have a customer that converted his to bio diesel. You start it up and and it smells like Burger king.
 
I learned that the hard way too. That is when I took both my three wheel stands ans sold them at the local auction. One had never been used. Silly thins bought quite a bit more than I paid for them. I took the money and bought a quality stand.
 
Mopar to ya said:
That's what you get for owning a Mercedes diesel. :) I have worked on my sister's 84 300SD more than I like to admit. I do have a customer that converted his to bio diesel. You start it up and and it smells like Burger king.
Click to expand...


I remember following a Mercedes down the interstate and I kept smelling french fries. It took me a while to figure out it was from that car.
 
Mopar to ya said:
That's what you get for owning a Mercedes diesel. :) I have worked on my sister's 84 300SD more than I like to admit. I do have a customer that converted his to bio diesel. You start it up and and it smells like Burger king.
Click to expand...

Yum.........french fries! LOL
 
Hmmm, I had those stands as a teen and rebuit a few engines. no problem. Yes. you do need to pay attention.

Same when the car is on jack stands, never pry too hard or you could yank the car off the stands
 
dodge freak said:
Hmmm, I had those stands as a teen and rebuit a few engines. no problem. Yes. you do need to pay attention.

Same when the car is on jack stands, never pry too hard or you could yank the car off the stands
Click to expand...

Look at the center line weight on that motor. There is nothing to counter balance all that weight. I can see real easy how it flipped.
 
The in-line diesel is cumbersome with the overhead cam and heavy injection pump on one side. A V-8 is much more balanced. I didn't trust the stand, which is why I moved it away from my Dart. The guy I bought it from said it broke once and he welded it back (not comforting). Once I lifted the engine back, I continued with the top down so the center of mass is low. I'll have it on the ground for the rest of the work.

My main job was cleaning to swap parts, since diesels get filthy. I don't know how others clean, but what works best for me is to scrape solid gunk with a putty knife, then brush in diesel fuel and wipe the wet gunk with paper towels, repeat, then an air nozzle to blow off sand and clean all crevices, then break up hard stuff with a wire brush, repeat. Gasoline evaporates too fast and is dangerous. Diesel (or kerosine) stays wet all night and seems to dissolve gunk just as well.

bohica2x0,
I would still like to rebuild my original engine, which is all apart. Can you buy new turbo pistons for $55? I can buy used ones for that, but don't trust them, and $275/set for used! I recently saw a new set for $675 on ebay, so maybe they started making replacements. About time, since M-B sold millions of 300D's around the world. I found 3 bad pistons in my engine, at 330K miles, which seems to be when most fail (so much for the "million mile engine"). 2 had spots missing by the ring grooves and one had big chunks missing and ground up rings (#1 that always fails first). The block is fine since it has removable cylinder liners ($15 ea) and I found an easy way to remove them. I have read horror stories of failed engines from burning veg oil, but maybe they just hit the 330K "engine fails" mark.
 
BillGrissom said:
The in-line diesel is cumbersome with the overhead cam and heavy injection pump on one side. A V-8 is much more balanced. I didn't trust the stand, which is why I moved it away from my Dart. The guy I bought it from said it broke once and he welded it back (not comforting). Once I lifted the engine back, I continued with the top down so the center of mass is low. I'll have it on the ground for the rest of the work.

My main job was cleaning to swap parts, since diesels get filthy. I don't know how others clean, but what works best for me is to scrape solid gunk with a putty knife, then brush in diesel fuel and wipe the wet gunk with paper towels, repeat, then an air nozzle to blow off sand and clean all crevices, then break up hard stuff with a wire brush, repeat. Gasoline evaporates too fast and is dangerous. Diesel (or kerosine) stays wet all night and seems to dissolve gunk just as well.

bohica2x0,
I would still like to rebuild my original engine, which is all apart. Can you buy new turbo pistons for $55? I can buy used ones for that, but don't trust them, and $275/set for used! I recently saw a new set for $675 on ebay, so maybe they started making replacements. About time, since M-B sold millions of 300D's around the world. I found 3 bad pistons in my engine, at 330K miles, which seems to be when most fail (so much for the "million mile engine"). 2 had spots missing by the ring grooves and one had big chunks missing and ground up rings (#1 that always fails first). The block is fine since it has removable cylinder liners ($15 ea) and I found an easy way to remove them. I have read horror stories of failed engines from burning veg oil, but maybe they just hit the 330K "engine fails" mark.
Click to expand...

I use Dollar General oven cleaner. It does real well. Another guy on the forum swears be Dawn dish washing soap so I am going to try it because you just never know.
 
Bill:

I don't know about the turbo pistons, the last 240D I put slugs in was not a turbo. They came from Rothenbacher Engineering in NC. They were 55 bucks each, .8mm oversize.


Hope that helps.

B
 
bohica2xo,
Thanks. I see the non-turbo pistons for ~$280/set new. Those were probably the diesels that got the million-mile reputation. M-B had a tough time getting the turbo diesel to work (78-85). Not only are the pistons beefier, they have squirters in the block that hit the underside of the pistons. One clogged squirter or one misdirected injector spray and the engine is toast. All that for maybe 120 HP. M-B got worse from there. The 86+ turbo diesels w/ 6 cyl alum block are lucky to reach 200K miles. Their V-8 gas engines were notorious for tilting pistons and bent rods (bored too much). "You bought status, not reliability" was their snide comment to fussy customers. Good that Mopar got out from under those German geniuses.

I am considering using the turbo from my extra engine on my 64 slant someday. Should be a close fit since the diesel is 3.0L. The turbo-chargers they used are fairly trouble free.
 
Bill:

The 240 / 300 was a decent engine. They usually did not make the 300k number either - usually due to a failed oil cooler or cooler line.

I swapped several nice 240's to V8 gas engines at one time. we covered the cost of our toy shop on the profits. People would have a dead MB towed to the dealer, and once they found out what it was going to cost they abandoned the car. Of course the dealer had already pulled the engine & removed the pan & head.

Most got 289 / 302 fords, but toward the end we would swap anything with a front sump. There is one 383 somewhere in CA - my buddy rolled up with a boat of a Newport one day and said "anything with the distributor in the front right?" It does fit. Barely. Donor cars came in running & got scrapped. MB came in dead & left with a gas engine...

Still no smog check in CA for diesels right?

B.
 
when i was in school, i was helping a classmate build a land cruiser 2f engine 6cyl. it flipped and some how caught his shoulder and drove him into the ground took 4 people to pull that heavy pos off of him.
 
bohico2xo,
Good info. I thought of putting an extra Mopar 273 engine I have in the Mercedes and forget the diesel $$$, but as you say the oil pan must drop in front to clear the K-frame. I didn't know Ford's are like that. Otherwise the 300D has nice features like IRS, 4-wheel disks, and a stout rear-end. Add 2 spokes to the emblem and it even looks like a pentastar.
 
BillGrissom said:
Maybe I should have got a 4-wheel engine stand. Remember falling off a trike as a kid? Why Honda soon dropped their off-road trike "neck snapper". I was trying to unscrew the crank bolt and the jam rod I put on the rear popped off and engine sprung back. I move quick.

Didn't hurt the engine. Taking a break from my Mopars to fix my 85 Mercedes that has been in the garage for 3 yrs since the engine failed. I did buy an 84 for $400 to swap the engine, but ended up fixing the car (a son drives it). I got this engine for $300. New Mercedes pistons cost $550 each.
Click to expand...

With the people swapping chevvy rods and who knows what pistons couldn't you put together a motor using domestic parts. Just asking, it might be a lot of fun seeing what would fit. I have friends using Honda rods in their Chevvys, could work??
 
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