MB's Generic 3/S Build/Restoration -

**mb3000** · 09-18-2013, 03:10 PM

Never made a build thread before, not sure where to start. I'm just going to give a little background on the car.

Purchased the car around August last year. Everything checked out OK, felt good about the purchase. My intentions for the car were to be used as a DD and keep it relatively stock.

On the way back (~7 hour drive) I notice a faint smell of burning oil, however was told by the previous owner that oil had dripped into the downpipe and was simply burning off. Stopped about an hour away from home to fill up the tank, decided to check the oil level for kicks. Was very dark out, didn't really see too much on the dipstick so I decided to put in 1qt, then another. Still couldn't see a difference so I figured it was just me, oil pressure registered well on stock gauge all the way back. Drove the rest of the way home without a problem.

The next day I popped the hood, and decided to drain the oil out of curiosity. Just about shit my pants.

At this point, I'm very worried about spinning a bearing, excess wear on the crankshaft, etc. At this point I figured a rebuild was in order, but figured I would see if I could stretch out the engine. At this point I knew I had a leak/burning oil somewhere and I wanted to find out where. Put 5qts in and cranked it up. Immediately Saw smoke after start-up (daylight outside now). Looked upon the front of the engine and saw oil leaking out of the oil fill cap. Inspected the oil cap, found to be very dry. Also checked oil pressure, which was now sky high. Only case of this I have seen on the 3/s was Superinflamo with his single turbo, had his OPRV get stuck from lack of lubrication. This made sense to me.

From here, I decided to check the plugs. Saw oil pooled around the spark plugs, leaking out of all of the front bank spark plug gaskets.

At this point I ordered new OEM oil cap gasket, VC gasket(s) and PCV. After these parts are installed the engine runs without any major leaks, still burns oil although less at this point.

Also notice the front end is mangled. This was brought up during the sale, however I did not fully realize the extent of the damage. Here is a picture of the underside of the radiator support.

Now I want to see how much damage had been done to the crank, so I decided to try to get the engine to break under some stress. On a deserted SC road at night I do about 1-3rd on the 6 speed Getrag, hitting redline in every gear. Engine did fine, although the brakes did not seem quite up to par. Also have some faint wheel bearing noise.

Ordered OEM front wheel bearings, complete brake package including drilled/slotted rotors, your basic boring street pads, and the 3SX SS brake lines.

The car after all of these parts were installed:

**mb3000** · 09-18-2013, 03:22 PM

Probably about 7-8 months of daily driving the car until I was ready for the build itself. Got some new rims, that was about it.

Eventually got the mod bug, started buying parts for a decent TD05 setup. Got just about there, had to make the tough decision to walk away and tone down the build (for personal reasons).

A for sale picture of the setup I had always wanted:

Now time for the teardown.

Some redneck engineering: (forgot about the crank pulley before tearing into the bay).

A quick bump of the engine and the bolt breaks free. Also note that I tried my Craftsman air impact beforehand, without any hint of success.

**mb3000** · 09-18-2013, 03:27 PM

After getting all of the belts, etc removed I found another scare:

Easily separated in my hands, very lucky that it did not separate.

I think I found the source of the oil burning, although there was oil pooled in both turbochargers, intake tract, etc:

Tired of typing, more to come later.