ScreamingLife's OM617 Swap Build Thread.
#1
08-11-2013, 03:56 AM
ScreamingLife's OM617 Swap Build Thread.
As any of you who have seen my signature recently have seen that I have been planning an OM617 Mercedes Turbo Diesel engine swap for a while now. Today I finally got the opportunity to start working on this swap, so I took some pictures and figured I may as well do a build thread for others who may be considering this swap.
Why am I doing this? Well, only a few months after getting head gaskets done my Rover overheated to about 250 degrees, and subsequently showed symptoms of a slipped sleeve, and upon some investigation we confirmed the fate [in cylinder 4]. At first I was just going to get new V8 engine from either another D2 at a local pick'n'pull (and potentially have the same thing happen again), or get a new engine from a source like CannibalV8 or D&D Fabrication. Upon researching I found that both of those would be about 7000 just to get started, and as much as a thousand more for the install, and I didn't feel like taking the chance of swapping in another engine so I started looking around and it lead me down the path of diesel...
Why diesel? I have always loved diesels, the sound they make, the way they work, everything about them fascinated me. When I did more research I became more and more intrigued with the idea. Eventually I came down to two candidates: The GM/Detroit Diesel 6.2/6.5L V8 diesel out of the Hummer or the Mercedes OM617 Inline 5 3.0L. Both are relatively cheap and easy to get a hold of. Both seemed as though they would fit easily enough into the Discovery engine bay. Both seemed to be winners, and that it would be truly hard to pick between the two, but then an obvious choice emerged.
Why OM617? Upon looking into both diesels, and getting hands on experience with both, I decided on the OM617. People I knew who had experience with the 6.2L said they were complete slugs, had head gasket issues, and were horrible at gas mileage. The 6.5L weren't much better and were much more expensive. Then out of luck a 1983 Mercedes 300SD was listed on Craigslist as a parts car for $1000, and upon checking it out, realized that it had only 87K miles on it, just 3.5 more than my Discovery and the engine was in pretty good shape I fell in love. After some haggling I bought it for $800. I was then almost immediately contacted by another person who was interested in the car but for just the transmission, and he was willing to pay $400 for the transmission, so all said and done I only spent $400 for the engine. A full 1000 dollars cheaper than what I would have paid for a used 6.2L Military surplus engine with almost 200K miles, and possible head gasket issues.
Whats the budget? My budget is roughly $4000. I am already $400 into this with the purchase of the engine. My rough budget is as follows:
HGM Automotive Electrontics Compushift II: 1200 (shipped)
Adapter Plate: 800 (includes labor for machining)
Intercooler: 400
Water Methanol Injection kit: 400
Various parts and labor: 500
So right now I've figured that I'll spend about 3300 dollars, including 800 dollars worth of things that we may not end up doing (intercooler/water methanol injection)
Also, we still have the 300SD chassis and have some of the body panels listed on craigslist which could help us keep the overall price down. Once the Rover V8 is out we will also be salvaging what we can out of that, again trying to recoup a bit of the budget. Also, I'm not going to bull**** you and try to tell you that after so many miles of driving the diesel I'll have saved an exorbitant amount of money based on MPG of the diesel. I also have the funds to allow the budget to go over based on something unexpected coming up. I also have another vehicle if the swap takes more time than expected.
What do I expect out of this? I know it will be slower. I know it will be louder. I know it won't be as smooth as the V8. I know there could be one in a million issues due to the rarity of the swap. All I want is to keep my D2 on the road, and be able to go back and forth from work and the beach. It will never tow anything larger than a jetski/seadoo trailer. It doesn't have to go fast, the highest speed limit here is 65 and its on a stretch of road I almost never commute on. The most important reason for me doing this swap is because I can.
Anyways, now that I'm done ranting about all the other stuff, lets get to the build!
The donor car!
She's a classic 1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD who unfortunately found its front end getting very intimate with the tow hitch of a lifted Dodge. Thankfully for my the extent of the damage was the grill, electrical fan and the radiator (which held water, but was slightly bent). She then sat at the owners house for about 5 months before he decided he was gonna sell her for parts.
My friend and I flat towed her on Thursday the 3 or so miles from the owners house to the shop where we planned on doing the work on her. Originally the plan was to start the engine removal right after we moved the car, but we ended up waiting until Saturday.
Earlier today (or yesterday morning for anyone on the mainland now), we got to work on her at about noon. First things first, get it on the lift.
I won't bore you the details for separating the Mercedes Automatic Transmission, because, its REALLY boring. But here it is, actually a bit smaller than what I thought it was gonna be. As mentioned previously, this has already been sold off
With that out of the way it was as simple as starting to disconnect any of the lines that went to the engine through the firewall and anything else that we didn't need for the swap.
Above you can see the engine pretty much ready to be removed from the engine bay. You can see there are still a hose on the bottom of the picture (passengers side of the engine bay) that goes to the heater core. Also still connected is the line through the upper firewall connecting the starter and the battery.
With all the lines removed, and all the engine mounts disconnected (and the engine very easily moved forward or backwards) we connected the engine hoist to it. We did have to move a few things out of the way as it was pulled up (such as the exhaust, and transmission cooler lines). The exhaust moved easily, but the cooler lines snapped.
After a little bit of wiggling and scratching of metal parts, we had success!
Well almost a complete success that is! We had put the hoist arm on the closest setting to the fulcrum and were not able to lift the engine enough to have the oil pan clear the front radiator support.... We had to innovate! We ended up hammering down the radiator support with a dead blow and have two people sit on the front of the Mercedes to push it down just enough to allow it to scrap out of the bay!
You can see the damage from the hammer in the background of this picture, and all in all it was REALLY easy and didn't take more than a few hours.
And there is the formerly stuffed engine bay.
With the engine completely out of the car we started to look the engine over to see what we had on our hands. It was a mess no doubt, with a mixture of oil and other fluids that had mixed together with Hawaiian red dirt to create a tar in some spots and cement in others. But all in all everything seemed in order and an excellent starting spot for our project!
A few pictures of the engine:
I started to clean the engine, but ran short on time and had to leave the engine, but before I left I got a few things taken care of:
The EGR was removed, and the EGR delete kit is on its way. No more exhaust fumes and all the associated nastiness getting back into the intakes.
Also removed was the Oil filter. It will be receiving an adapter plate to run a remote filter, while retaining the stock unit. This is to allow easy changing of filters. If it were to remain in the stock location it would sit directly against the firewall of the Discovery.
We also removed the valve cover, however I do not have pictures of that, as my phone was dead by the time it we did that. However I will take pictures of the valve cover when I clean, sand and prime it tomorrow.
So that's it for today. I'm not going to be working too hard on it tomorrow (I have plans to go to the beach anyways!). My goal is to have the valve cover and oil filter unit ready for paint by Monday.
As for a bit further out schedule: We will be taking apart the OM617 over the next week to see if we need to fix/rebuild anything such as the timing chain or fuel pump. Also during that time we will be modifying the oil sump so that it doesn't destroy/get destroyed by the front differential (we are also installing HD coils and 1 inch spacers to help us out with this issue). Monday the 19th is when we will start taking out the Discovery's engine with the hope of having the adaptor plate and engine mounts back from the fabricators by the end of the week. We have a few more goodies planned that may drag out the swap, but other than that, it should be a runner by the middle of September.
If you have any questions, concerns or comments feel free to add them here. I do appreciate constructive criticism, I will however not tolerate anyone that decides to be blatantly negative, as there is really no reason to do so. Thank you for taking your time to read my thread, and I'll add more content as it we progress! Cheers!
Why am I doing this? Well, only a few months after getting head gaskets done my Rover overheated to about 250 degrees, and subsequently showed symptoms of a slipped sleeve, and upon some investigation we confirmed the fate [in cylinder 4]. At first I was just going to get new V8 engine from either another D2 at a local pick'n'pull (and potentially have the same thing happen again), or get a new engine from a source like CannibalV8 or D&D Fabrication. Upon researching I found that both of those would be about 7000 just to get started, and as much as a thousand more for the install, and I didn't feel like taking the chance of swapping in another engine so I started looking around and it lead me down the path of diesel...
Why diesel? I have always loved diesels, the sound they make, the way they work, everything about them fascinated me. When I did more research I became more and more intrigued with the idea. Eventually I came down to two candidates: The GM/Detroit Diesel 6.2/6.5L V8 diesel out of the Hummer or the Mercedes OM617 Inline 5 3.0L. Both are relatively cheap and easy to get a hold of. Both seemed as though they would fit easily enough into the Discovery engine bay. Both seemed to be winners, and that it would be truly hard to pick between the two, but then an obvious choice emerged.
Why OM617? Upon looking into both diesels, and getting hands on experience with both, I decided on the OM617. People I knew who had experience with the 6.2L said they were complete slugs, had head gasket issues, and were horrible at gas mileage. The 6.5L weren't much better and were much more expensive. Then out of luck a 1983 Mercedes 300SD was listed on Craigslist as a parts car for $1000, and upon checking it out, realized that it had only 87K miles on it, just 3.5 more than my Discovery and the engine was in pretty good shape I fell in love. After some haggling I bought it for $800. I was then almost immediately contacted by another person who was interested in the car but for just the transmission, and he was willing to pay $400 for the transmission, so all said and done I only spent $400 for the engine. A full 1000 dollars cheaper than what I would have paid for a used 6.2L Military surplus engine with almost 200K miles, and possible head gasket issues.
Whats the budget? My budget is roughly $4000. I am already $400 into this with the purchase of the engine. My rough budget is as follows:
HGM Automotive Electrontics Compushift II: 1200 (shipped)
Adapter Plate: 800 (includes labor for machining)
Intercooler: 400
Water Methanol Injection kit: 400
Various parts and labor: 500
So right now I've figured that I'll spend about 3300 dollars, including 800 dollars worth of things that we may not end up doing (intercooler/water methanol injection)
Also, we still have the 300SD chassis and have some of the body panels listed on craigslist which could help us keep the overall price down. Once the Rover V8 is out we will also be salvaging what we can out of that, again trying to recoup a bit of the budget. Also, I'm not going to bull**** you and try to tell you that after so many miles of driving the diesel I'll have saved an exorbitant amount of money based on MPG of the diesel. I also have the funds to allow the budget to go over based on something unexpected coming up. I also have another vehicle if the swap takes more time than expected.
What do I expect out of this? I know it will be slower. I know it will be louder. I know it won't be as smooth as the V8. I know there could be one in a million issues due to the rarity of the swap. All I want is to keep my D2 on the road, and be able to go back and forth from work and the beach. It will never tow anything larger than a jetski/seadoo trailer. It doesn't have to go fast, the highest speed limit here is 65 and its on a stretch of road I almost never commute on. The most important reason for me doing this swap is because I can.
Anyways, now that I'm done ranting about all the other stuff, lets get to the build!
The donor car!
She's a classic 1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD who unfortunately found its front end getting very intimate with the tow hitch of a lifted Dodge. Thankfully for my the extent of the damage was the grill, electrical fan and the radiator (which held water, but was slightly bent). She then sat at the owners house for about 5 months before he decided he was gonna sell her for parts.
My friend and I flat towed her on Thursday the 3 or so miles from the owners house to the shop where we planned on doing the work on her. Originally the plan was to start the engine removal right after we moved the car, but we ended up waiting until Saturday.
Earlier today (or yesterday morning for anyone on the mainland now), we got to work on her at about noon. First things first, get it on the lift.
I won't bore you the details for separating the Mercedes Automatic Transmission, because, its REALLY boring. But here it is, actually a bit smaller than what I thought it was gonna be. As mentioned previously, this has already been sold off
With that out of the way it was as simple as starting to disconnect any of the lines that went to the engine through the firewall and anything else that we didn't need for the swap.
Above you can see the engine pretty much ready to be removed from the engine bay. You can see there are still a hose on the bottom of the picture (passengers side of the engine bay) that goes to the heater core. Also still connected is the line through the upper firewall connecting the starter and the battery.
With all the lines removed, and all the engine mounts disconnected (and the engine very easily moved forward or backwards) we connected the engine hoist to it. We did have to move a few things out of the way as it was pulled up (such as the exhaust, and transmission cooler lines). The exhaust moved easily, but the cooler lines snapped.
After a little bit of wiggling and scratching of metal parts, we had success!
Well almost a complete success that is! We had put the hoist arm on the closest setting to the fulcrum and were not able to lift the engine enough to have the oil pan clear the front radiator support.... We had to innovate! We ended up hammering down the radiator support with a dead blow and have two people sit on the front of the Mercedes to push it down just enough to allow it to scrap out of the bay!
You can see the damage from the hammer in the background of this picture, and all in all it was REALLY easy and didn't take more than a few hours.
And there is the formerly stuffed engine bay.
With the engine completely out of the car we started to look the engine over to see what we had on our hands. It was a mess no doubt, with a mixture of oil and other fluids that had mixed together with Hawaiian red dirt to create a tar in some spots and cement in others. But all in all everything seemed in order and an excellent starting spot for our project!
A few pictures of the engine:
I started to clean the engine, but ran short on time and had to leave the engine, but before I left I got a few things taken care of:
The EGR was removed, and the EGR delete kit is on its way. No more exhaust fumes and all the associated nastiness getting back into the intakes.
Also removed was the Oil filter. It will be receiving an adapter plate to run a remote filter, while retaining the stock unit. This is to allow easy changing of filters. If it were to remain in the stock location it would sit directly against the firewall of the Discovery.
We also removed the valve cover, however I do not have pictures of that, as my phone was dead by the time it we did that. However I will take pictures of the valve cover when I clean, sand and prime it tomorrow.
So that's it for today. I'm not going to be working too hard on it tomorrow (I have plans to go to the beach anyways!). My goal is to have the valve cover and oil filter unit ready for paint by Monday.
As for a bit further out schedule: We will be taking apart the OM617 over the next week to see if we need to fix/rebuild anything such as the timing chain or fuel pump. Also during that time we will be modifying the oil sump so that it doesn't destroy/get destroyed by the front differential (we are also installing HD coils and 1 inch spacers to help us out with this issue). Monday the 19th is when we will start taking out the Discovery's engine with the hope of having the adaptor plate and engine mounts back from the fabricators by the end of the week. We have a few more goodies planned that may drag out the swap, but other than that, it should be a runner by the middle of September.
If you have any questions, concerns or comments feel free to add them here. I do appreciate constructive criticism, I will however not tolerate anyone that decides to be blatantly negative, as there is really no reason to do so. Thank you for taking your time to read my thread, and I'll add more content as it we progress! Cheers!
The following users liked this post:
Wesley Mosby (01-02-2020)
#2
08-11-2013, 07:27 AM
Super Moderator
