Opinions.. my 2010 E350 CGI oil burner (225k miles)
Discussion
! 
Hello all,
I frequent a number of forums... but I did wander over here recently and the engagement and interest is second to other site i've been on so I am going to start posting here a lot more I think.
Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you Merc heads think of my latest "thing".
My daily E350 CGI petrol is burning about 1 - 1.5 litres of oil in around 700miles. It gives a shot of blueish smoke in the morning when started cold... and if I idle too long or drive around in stop/start traffic and then floor it once I hit open road, gives out the biggest cloud of smoke you have ever seen and I can get some misfire codes.
..So all that points to valve stem seals, right?
Which means.. I am going to change the valve stem seals. The theory being that the seals are rubber and should wear before valve guides or piston rings (or cylinders for that matter) should. So I'm not going to be pulling the heads and going down that rabbit hole..
I'm going to do this myself.
What do people reckon.. anybody I have spoke to up to this point has said there is no point doing it without changing the rings too? But I have seen lots of people online say that valve stem seals alone solved their problem.
Also, does anybody else have a direct injection Merc and cleaned out the carbon from their intake valves? I have a feeling mine are totally choked up at this point.
Disclaimer - before proceeding with this job, I will be doing a wet/dry compression test to see where we are at.
Thank you in advance
Hello all,
I frequent a number of forums... but I did wander over here recently and the engagement and interest is second to other site i've been on so I am going to start posting here a lot more I think.
Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you Merc heads think of my latest "thing".
My daily E350 CGI petrol is burning about 1 - 1.5 litres of oil in around 700miles. It gives a shot of blueish smoke in the morning when started cold... and if I idle too long or drive around in stop/start traffic and then floor it once I hit open road, gives out the biggest cloud of smoke you have ever seen and I can get some misfire codes.
..So all that points to valve stem seals, right?
Which means.. I am going to change the valve stem seals. The theory being that the seals are rubber and should wear before valve guides or piston rings (or cylinders for that matter) should. So I'm not going to be pulling the heads and going down that rabbit hole..
I'm going to do this myself.
What do people reckon.. anybody I have spoke to up to this point has said there is no point doing it without changing the rings too? But I have seen lots of people online say that valve stem seals alone solved their problem.
Also, does anybody else have a direct injection Merc and cleaned out the carbon from their intake valves? I have a feeling mine are totally choked up at this point.
Disclaimer - before proceeding with this job, I will be doing a wet/dry compression test to see where we are at.
Thank you in advance
You might get a better response posting here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&...
fourwheeler said:
Thank you.
I suppose it is a more generic engine question than Mercedes specific. Still getting used to these waters.
I'll try and report the post to get it moved.
Ta.
Can easily be very specific, if it is very common to that model.I suppose it is a more generic engine question than Mercedes specific. Still getting used to these waters.
I'll try and report the post to get it moved.
Ta.
It's a bit dumb saying it's pointless doing valve stem seals and not rings. Valve stem seals can usually be done "relatively" easily, rings obviously requires a complete engine strip down.
As to whether either is your problem, who knows. I'd check all breathers are in good order, and perhaps try a different better/thicker grade of oil first before pulling things apart. You might get lucky.
And I'd certainly be looking at the plugs to see if any individual one shows more signs of oil than any others just in case.
If you can get things apart for a visual on the seals, you might see if some are broken, damaged, missing....or you might see nothing untoward.
If you can get a little poke at them to feel if they're hard or still nice and soft etc No idea what access is like on yours.
Thanks for the feedback, everybody.
The thing is... on this particular engine (M272) .. the cams need to come off to get at the springs / valve seals... which means timing is lost.
Head gasket and bolts aren't that expensive in the grand scheme of things, so I am thinking of getting the heads off and tidied up.
When the heads are off I can inspect the pistons and cylinders. I won't be worried about roundness but would like to see the state of the walls and pistons / rings.
I need to investigate this further but I might take the pistons out and do the rings too, while I am there because once I have the engine out, and on stand I should be able to pop them out with the crank in place. I would like to clean them in my ultrasonic cleaner and change the rings too.
I don't feel the rings will need changing due to wear.... but I do feel they might be very gummed up due to the oil burning situation I have had for the last 30k miles.
The extent of the work needs to be diagnosed before any future action is clear.
A simple compression check will help - possibly the oil issue will have impacted the compression, possibly not. If you carry on 'regardless' that will doubtless happen, but it may not have happened yet.
then it is a question of what is the car worth to you, versus what the repairs will likely cost. Obviously we all tend to regard our labour as 'free' which is and is not true. But in the usual 'man maths' helps to justify doing things.
The bigger issue is that if the compression readings are low, you strip the engine and then find that the rings are not gummed up, but the bores are worn. At that stage you sort of become committed to a rebore and new pistons / rings etc. The simple repair becomes much more involved.
It all depends on your 'value' of the vehicle and your potential labour and parts costs.
Best of luck
A simple compression check will help - possibly the oil issue will have impacted the compression, possibly not. If you carry on 'regardless' that will doubtless happen, but it may not have happened yet.
then it is a question of what is the car worth to you, versus what the repairs will likely cost. Obviously we all tend to regard our labour as 'free' which is and is not true. But in the usual 'man maths' helps to justify doing things.
The bigger issue is that if the compression readings are low, you strip the engine and then find that the rings are not gummed up, but the bores are worn. At that stage you sort of become committed to a rebore and new pistons / rings etc. The simple repair becomes much more involved.
It all depends on your 'value' of the vehicle and your potential labour and parts costs.
Best of luck
Pete54 said:
The extent of the work needs to be diagnosed before any future action is clear.
A simple compression check will help - possibly the oil issue will have impacted the compression, possibly not. If you carry on 'regardless' that will doubtless happen, but it may not have happened yet.
then it is a question of what is the car worth to you, versus what the repairs will likely cost. Obviously we all tend to regard our labour as 'free' which is and is not true. But in the usual 'man maths' helps to justify doing things.
The bigger issue is that if the compression readings are low, you strip the engine and then find that the rings are not gummed up, but the bores are worn. At that stage you sort of become committed to a rebore and new pistons / rings etc. The simple repair becomes much more involved.
It all depends on your 'value' of the vehicle and your potential labour and parts costs.
Best of luck
I hear you.. there could absolutely be more wrong with the block.. but I seriously doubt it. I mean do you really think the cylinders are going to be out of spec/damaged as to pose a problem on a 225k regularly serviced block. I am quite confident given current symptoms that it's the oil stem seals.A simple compression check will help - possibly the oil issue will have impacted the compression, possibly not. If you carry on 'regardless' that will doubtless happen, but it may not have happened yet.
then it is a question of what is the car worth to you, versus what the repairs will likely cost. Obviously we all tend to regard our labour as 'free' which is and is not true. But in the usual 'man maths' helps to justify doing things.
The bigger issue is that if the compression readings are low, you strip the engine and then find that the rings are not gummed up, but the bores are worn. At that stage you sort of become committed to a rebore and new pistons / rings etc. The simple repair becomes much more involved.
It all depends on your 'value' of the vehicle and your potential labour and parts costs.
Best of luck
That said, i'm going to take the heads off because it's not a lot of extra work, and the head gaskets and bolts aren't a massive cost.
I don't see your point about the labour being free etc.. but for me it's my hobby which I enjoy. I rented out a 2k sq. ft. commercial unit to put all my cars in and set up a workshop to work on them.. so for me the labour is genuinely a love affair (single, no kids...).
From posting in various other places.. I have seen a load of people mention that simply changing the valve stem seals solved the problem for them.. I would simply change the seals if it was that straight forward. Unfortunately on my engine, the cams need to come out and lose timing.. so I may as well just go forth and pull the heads to see how things are..on the other side of things.
To answer the question of what the car is worth to me.. I have a really good breakdown of how it's been over the last 4 years and what I plan on on doing going forward.. https://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/index.php?threa...
I think if it were me and I had pulled the engine then depending on cost I’d probably do the bottom end too but it’s a tricky decision.
Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
Belle427 said:
I think if it were me and I had pulled the engine then depending on cost I’d probably do the bottom end too but it’s a tricky decision.
Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
Yea, I hear you.. to be honest I am probably very likely to do bottom end too. By that, do you mean the bearings on big and little end along with piston rings?Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
I can see myself doing that if I am honest.. although part of me wants to do only the valve seals to prove my point... but I don't think i'm that belligerent lol.
Hot damn.. I have a Clio 172 cup as a shell I need to assemble before I can get to this.
fourwheeler said:
Belle427 said:
I think if it were me and I had pulled the engine then depending on cost I’d probably do the bottom end too but it’s a tricky decision.
Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
Yea, I hear you.. to be honest I am probably very likely to do bottom end too. By that, do you mean the bearings on big and little end along with piston rings?Depends if the cars a keeper for you really, most would just do the heads and move on in all probability.
They may be snake oil but have you tried a quality stop leak type additive and maybe some thicker oil?
I can see myself doing that if I am honest.. although part of me wants to do only the valve seals to prove my point... but I don't think i'm that belligerent lol.
Hot damn.. I have a Clio 172 cup as a shell I need to assemble before I can get to this.
Have you thought about just selling as is and getting rid of the headache?
In these mad times someone will pay half decent money for it.
Similar to you I have a number of projects on the go which pulls me in different directions…
I rebuilt a high power Pinto engine for one of my kit cars, persuaded a known Pknto expert to run it up and set fuel and ignition on his personal engine dyno, we embarked on a very lengthy journey where my engine featured in 3 Classic Ford magazine articles and 5 YouTube videos on the tuners channel (Penguin motors) by the end I had learned a lot and myths were busted about amongst other things exhaust manifolds 4-2-1 Vs 4-2 but I digress
When I got the engine back home and in the car I was met with blue smoke on startup then later a huge fog of blue smoke when reved…
I thought the engine had succumbed to the hundreds and hundreds (maybe in the thousands) of full throttle pulls over 6 months, eventually I spotted 1 valve stem seal that had walked up the valve stem, hard to see through the double valve springs, I found another 3 in a similar state. I bought a tool to compress the springs in situ and used the rope trick to fill the chamber through the spark plug hole and provide support and stop the valve disappearing into the bore.5 of the 8 valve stems were loose and off the guide 2 were split, bought new narrow seals and used a spot of lock tight to keep them in place, the result was no smoke Woo Hoo
I rebuilt a high power Pinto engine for one of my kit cars, persuaded a known Pknto expert to run it up and set fuel and ignition on his personal engine dyno, we embarked on a very lengthy journey where my engine featured in 3 Classic Ford magazine articles and 5 YouTube videos on the tuners channel (Penguin motors) by the end I had learned a lot and myths were busted about amongst other things exhaust manifolds 4-2-1 Vs 4-2 but I digress
When I got the engine back home and in the car I was met with blue smoke on startup then later a huge fog of blue smoke when reved…
I thought the engine had succumbed to the hundreds and hundreds (maybe in the thousands) of full throttle pulls over 6 months, eventually I spotted 1 valve stem seal that had walked up the valve stem, hard to see through the double valve springs, I found another 3 in a similar state. I bought a tool to compress the springs in situ and used the rope trick to fill the chamber through the spark plug hole and provide support and stop the valve disappearing into the bore.5 of the 8 valve stems were loose and off the guide 2 were split, bought new narrow seals and used a spot of lock tight to keep them in place, the result was no smoke Woo Hoo
Belle427 said:
Providing the bores are ok yes.
Have you thought about just selling as is and getting rid of the headache?
In these mad times someone will pay half decent money for it.
I have considered it, yes.. but it's not the course of action I will take. I love the car and it would be difficult to replace.Have you thought about just selling as is and getting rid of the headache?
In these mad times someone will pay half decent money for it.
I'll do this job and see where I end up, I reckon.
PaulKemp said:
Similar to you I have a number of projects on the go which pulls me in different directions…
I rebuilt a high power Pinto engine for one of my kit cars, persuaded a known Pknto expert to run it up and set fuel and ignition on his personal engine dyno, we embarked on a very lengthy journey where my engine featured in 3 Classic Ford magazine articles and 5 YouTube videos on the tuners channel (Penguin motors) by the end I had learned a lot and myths were busted about amongst other things exhaust manifolds 4-2-1 Vs 4-2 but I digress
When I got the engine back home and in the car I was met with blue smoke on startup then later a huge fog of blue smoke when reved…
I thought the engine had succumbed to the hundreds and hundreds (maybe in the thousands) of full throttle pulls over 6 months, eventually I spotted 1 valve stem seal that had walked up the valve stem, hard to see through the double valve springs, I found another 3 in a similar state. I bought a tool to compress the springs in situ and used the rope trick to fill the chamber through the spark plug hole and provide support and stop the valve disappearing into the bore.5 of the 8 valve stems were loose and off the guide 2 were split, bought new narrow seals and used a spot of lock tight to keep them in place, the result was no smoke Woo Hoo
It's a slippery slope isn't it lol.I rebuilt a high power Pinto engine for one of my kit cars, persuaded a known Pknto expert to run it up and set fuel and ignition on his personal engine dyno, we embarked on a very lengthy journey where my engine featured in 3 Classic Ford magazine articles and 5 YouTube videos on the tuners channel (Penguin motors) by the end I had learned a lot and myths were busted about amongst other things exhaust manifolds 4-2-1 Vs 4-2 but I digress
When I got the engine back home and in the car I was met with blue smoke on startup then later a huge fog of blue smoke when reved…
I thought the engine had succumbed to the hundreds and hundreds (maybe in the thousands) of full throttle pulls over 6 months, eventually I spotted 1 valve stem seal that had walked up the valve stem, hard to see through the double valve springs, I found another 3 in a similar state. I bought a tool to compress the springs in situ and used the rope trick to fill the chamber through the spark plug hole and provide support and stop the valve disappearing into the bore.5 of the 8 valve stems were loose and off the guide 2 were split, bought new narrow seals and used a spot of lock tight to keep them in place, the result was no smoke Woo Hoo
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