Marshall, I did as you suggested and disconnected the breather tube from the valve cover to the intake. Didn't seem to make a noticable difference. There does seem to be a fair amount of pressure under the valve cover though. More than I'd like to see and it could be a contributor.
The head gasket was replaced when the #14 head was replaced by the used #17 head. I guess I could have screwed it up and I could be getting leaking past the area between the #1 cylinder and the oil passage next to the chain vault. I guess I'm still leaning towards the seals as being the culprit, although I'd love for it to be something else simpler and easier to fix! ...Kevin 87 300TD 275k mi. Marshall Booth said: > Kevin J. Slater wrote: >> Folks, >> I figured I'd ask one last time before I commit to replacing the valve stem seals on my 300TD's OM603. To recap, the symptoms are: >> - Blue smoke when pulling away from a stop after the engine warms up. - Amount of smoke seems to grow with length of time spent idling. - Very little or no blue smoke during starting after sitting overnight. (I >> don't notice it when backing out of the garage/driveway.) >> - Off odor burning smell in the exhaust. (Keeps people off the bumper though!) >> Marshall and Dave M have both given invaluable input into the situation. >> What I'm wondering is, could this be something else? Some folks seem to mention the turbo; which may be easier to service than the replacing the >> stem seals with the head on the motor? Any input welcome and >> appreciated. >> ...Kevin >> 87 300TD 275.8k mi (and pissing off 'environmentalists' everywhere it goes..) > > The blue smoke could be from the valve stems/seals or any other point of access to the air ingested. This is a RARE symptom. I would disconnect the breather line from the valve cover to the air intake, do a few hard acceleration runs to clear out any possible oil accumulation in the air intake path and then see if the blue smoke is diminished. > > If there is NO change you can certainly try new seals as that seems to be the next logical step, but except for Dave's case (where the seal - perhaps an incorrect one - was improperly installed) new seals seldom corrects oil consumption problems on diesels. > > Still, the replacement of the seals DID cure Dave's problem. > > The VERY early stages of a blown head gasket (between the #1 cylinder and the oil passage next to the chain vault) can produce symptoms not unlike what you describe (the phrase, "(o)ff odor burning smell in the exhaust" describes the smell from the exhaust from my 601 engine with the blown head gasket). As it gets worse the smoke gets worse and whiter and oil consumption increases - mine reached a qt/200 miles before I finally replaced the head gasket! > > Are you SURE that the air filter and air intake is unrestricted?? When was the air cleaner changed? > > Marshall > > -- > Marshall Booth (who doesn't respond to unsigned questions) > "der Dieseling Doktor" [EMAIL PROTECTED] > '87 300TD 181Kmi,'87 190D 2.5 199Kmi, '84 190D 2.2 227Kmi, '85 190D 2.0 159Kmi, '87 190D 2.5 turbo 234kmi > Diesel Technical Advisor MBCA, member GWSection > http://www.dhc.net/~pmhack/mercedes/mbooth1.htm > > -- "Thank God for Microsoft" -- Linus Torvalds
