An urgent advice or help request - Ukrainian Hero ML gravely wounded on the Home Front

[mat777]

Evening all, 

Spent today trying to help my friend who runs a medical aid charity taking supplies out to Ukraine and documenting evidence of war crimes, for which he often uses a careworn W163 ML 270cdi as the perfect cheap, robust and mechanically simple transport. 

As a veteran of multiple trips to the front line, the car is considered a bit of a legend in Ukraine and he is very fond of it, wanting to keep it going. 

He's got the dreaded chuffing injector seal and black death goo, so today we tried to remove the offending injector to change the seal and clean up the mess. As a charity he's operating on a shoestring and knowing it's supposedly simple job we decided to save the several hundred pound garage bill and try it ourselves. 

Unfortunately, try as we might with a warm engine, a heat gun, levering and slide hammering we could not get the damn thing to budge. Not wanting to try harder and break something we bravely decided to give up, put it all back together properly and go to a garage after all. 

 

 

Unfortunately on the way home, the injector appears to have changed from "Hah, no. Not budging" to "I must go, my people need me"

 

When he rang me to tell me the news, I thought it can't be that bad apart from a maybe bent fuel line or a broken fixing.  

HOWEVER, roadside inspection of the escaped injector has suggested a new coolant leak in the vicinity but I'm baffled as to where from. I know there's a coolant jacket in the head under where the injector retaining bolt goes. However this boot was done up to the correct hand tight amount after we'd cleaned all the sludge out the hole as much as possible, so I'm confident we shouldn't have cracked the head. 

The injector appears to have escaped by not being seated properly in the crows foot shaped retaining clamp, it's somehow snapped the cast clamp in half. 

He's absolutely gutted and thinks he's looking at a new engine which he definitely can't afford and would financially write the car off. The car is being recovered back to his house in Toxteth, Liverpool tonight and I've said I'll go up tomorrow to help assess. I feel awful because I'm supposed to be the mechanically competent muse to his enthusiastic urge to get stuck in, but it looks like we've really fucked it up this time. 

I've stuck a video of the damage on the WhatsApp group but can't figure out how to upload it here. 

Can anyone please offer any ideas, tips or things to check? Or even better, any local shiters able to help cast an eye over it tomorrow please? I know there's a few in the area and it's for a truly good cause! 

Many thanks in advance!

 

 

[Rust Collector]

From memory the clamp is meant to be replaced when the injector comes out, along with the stretch bolt, I wonder if they weaken when removed/reused.

Pretty sure @vaughant had one of these where the bolt breached the coolant passage, and I have a dim recollection of him mentioning that he sealed the threads when refitting (or similar) and it held up afterwards.

Easiest way I’ve found to get video up on here is to upload it to YouTube and paste the link here.

I hope you’re successful in sorting it out.

[vaughant]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

From memory the clamp is meant to be replaced when the injector comes out, along with the stretch bolt, I wonder if they weaken when removed/reused.

Pretty sure @vaughant had one of these where the bolt breached the coolant passage, and I have a dim recollection of him mentioning that he sealed the threads when refitting (or similar) and it held up afterwards.

Easiest way I’ve found to get video up on here is to upload it to YouTube and paste the link here.

I hope you’re successful in sorting it out.

I did indeed fuck the injector up and cause a coolant leak as the actual jacket is about 0.00000001mm under where the bolt goes.

The temptation is of course to nip it up and fear that you've completely fucked up the coolant jacket but it will be fine, I just used an extra washer on the bolt and plenty of PTFE tape around it.

I never lost any coolant on that vehicle and had no overheating issues whatsoever. 

A great bus I miss daily.

[Noel Tidybeard]

6d Diesels may be able to shed some light* on youtube or he says he will help on the phone if he can

 

he likes mercs & has a ml 27iirc

[mat777]

Thanks for the replies everyone, finally managed to get the video uploaded so hopefully this helps shed some light on how fucked or not things are? 

 

[mat777]

Ps. I see this has been moved to the ask forum ...cm any chance please it can be moved back to the main board so my mate can keep an eye on the replies without an AS account? TIA!

[NorthernMonkey]

22 minutes ago, mat777 said:

Ps. I see this has been moved to the ask forum ...cm any chance please it can be moved back to the main board so my mate can keep an eye on the replies without an AS account? TIA!

Done

[vaughant]

9 hours ago, mat777 said:

Thanks for the replies everyone, finally managed to get the video uploaded so hopefully this helps shed some light on how fucked or not things are? 

 

After viewing the video I'll stick to my main thought that when the injector is put back you'll be fine provided it hasn't sheared anything.

A lad who did my injectors used to helicoil them quite frequently as the clamp down bolt thread failed into the soft ally.

[Noel Tidybeard]

fixing "the black death"

 

[mat777]

4 hours ago, vaughant said:

After viewing the video I'll stick to my main thought that when the injector is put back you'll be fine provided it hasn't sheared anything.

A lad who did my injectors used to helicoil them quite frequently as the clamp down bolt thread failed into the soft ally.

Cheers, so you think the source of the coolant here IS a breached coolant jacket from us fucking around with the bolt, BUT if we get it helicoiled and then plaster it with sealant it ought to be watertight once reassembled?

Given we only put the bolt in hand tight, but it needed a bit of effort to crack off in the first place, could it have been the undoing that damaged things? Or even have been cracked but holding before it was disturbed? 

I'm also assuming that if the crows foot clamps are supposed to be consumable, they're also quite easy to obtain like the stretch bolts? 

Thanks in advance!