> Rolling Hills Farm wrote: > About 6 or so years > back, it started using oil, somewhere around 640K miles or so.
> Determined that the valve guides are leaky, thus the > extra smoking and oil consumption. Hmm. On a turbo, most of the time the intake under pressure so leaking valve guides would cause an air leak into the rocker arm cover - _not_ oil into the intake. That doesn't mean the valve guides are not leaking, just that oil consumption and smoking are symptoms of leaking guides in gasoline engine, maybe a normally aspirated diesel, but not likely on a turbo. > Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on valve guide > replacement. I've had 5 different people tell me that I > should just leave well-enough alone, and not replace the valve > guides, but rather just keep driving it, adding oil, and put > up with the smoking. Something about replacing valve guides > that might screw up something else and make things worse than > they are. Repair it. But I'd suggest making sure it really is valve guides. > I don't abuse the car; I > very,very seldom drive it over 65 mph, Oh. Well, that's nearly abuse. These old Mercedes engines need to get their combustion chambers hot every so often to burn off excess carbon. Around here we call that an "Italian Tuneup" and refer to the concept and "drive it like you stole it". I live in the mid-west, where the terrain in vertically challenged it's not easy to find a hill big enough and long enough to really work a turbo. So I keep an eye out for tall, long hills where I can down shift to 3rd and put my foot to the floor and let the engine reach peak RPM (5000 or so) at hopefully max power (before the governor starts to limit fuel) for a while as I climb the hill. With the normally aspirated engines it's a bit easier to find a road where I can make the engine work hard. In between hill-climbs, I always put my foot to the floor and make the engine reach the governed speed at every on ramp and any other time I can manage it. > and religiously do oil changes every 3K miles. > Any ideas? Smoking issue is worse than before. Every time I > take off from a stoplight, I have a lot of blue smoke (burning > oil), and when I start it the first time every day, it belches > smoke like you wouldn't believe. Just in regular driving > though, there's no visible smoke. Engine still sounds awesome > (that opinion coming from comparing it to the other 20 or so > 2.4L and 3.0L cars I've owned over the years). Power isn't > what it used to be, but that's to be expected. Like other's have said, that's sounding like it could be a turbo. I think that's much more likely to cause your symptoms than valve guides. > Someone recommended that I use some Lucas oil additive, maybe > a half-quart every other oil change. You can if you want. But the best you can do for it is run a group IV synthetic oil. Like Mobil 1, or Amsoil. And then skip the additive. > I am determined to reach one million miles > eventually, although I know there's a snowball's chance in > Purgatory that it will happen with this original engine. If you are willing to spend more on repairing the engine than a used engine would cost, a million (USA) miles should be easy. Usually it's not that the engine isn't repairable, just that it makes more economic sense to replace. That's not to say your engine is at that point! Turbo seals is not an end-of-the-engine-life type problem! -- Philip _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
