lindenengineering
Well-known member
Gents.
It wouldn't be right in this text as not to include carbon's abrasive cousin in this submission as to be without it! Consequently this technical observation would have no tangible relevance other than what might be profoundly categorized as musings of the workshop, but physical evidence is afoot ! Hence, it is called "in short" gentlemen and to you the tender fairer sex reading this might call the dastardly common or garden dust & dirt known as "silica" ! In some circles if not all these manifestations known to all as crankshaft & shell bearing failures on OM642 Sprinter engines!
Again in short the word "scouring" is observed as a salient problem not to be overlooked and caused mostly by that black lurking b-laggard in all diesel engines called Carbon or Soot!
Those of dubious filters and inevitable remiss of that what is of common but expensive overheads, called maintenance & giving cause to popular expressions of our latter day rise; This in short called stealerships by popular expression & involvement, plus those terrible grubby Independent repair shops that seem to plague every nook, cranny, & corner of our societies offering advice to the unwary & what one might call highway robbers like Dick Turpin! Obviously made familiar in this case with terms like "Stand and Deliver" being the hue and cry of the latter day in advanced motor vehicle repair facilities all facing the "travails" of the common man!. Akin that is it might be said to having a trophy wife I suppose, that may give you pecuniary nightmares of a particular fashion such as having an unfettered Mastercard in her tender hands on the High St or you retiring on a full stomach and having a mental fit during the night thinking of big end bearings of that broken beloved perambulation called a Sprinter van or GL or E Class "something " What worse the mental convulsions in the middle of Montana with population sum of zero and a dead Sprinter showing "start blocking" as a fault! ! Sadly that this situation has no romantic significance in the the realms of Victorian prose such as it was when you purchased it new with great expectations of the trouble free open road ! These are modern day manifestations are simply as the eloquent conviction made popular by writer's tragedy and of adversity of the dreaded eras depicted with Charles Dickens and his Greek tragedy like novels of humanistic kind.,
Consequently in spite of efficacious attempts to categorize the problem and fend off boastful statements by pundits, including "wisciouos false claims" bordering upon the absurd ! I have this to report with supporting observations including substantiation support from Mahle/Clevite; those renown engine bearing & piston manufacturers of some notoriety and motor industry fame !
The Specimen
2011 Sprinter van with OM642 engine.
Mileage to failure investigation 179,000 miles
Symptoms high oil consumption.
Observations upon tear down.
Engine had been run on various oil brands & weights due to consumption problems. Filters currently installed were all aftermarket including a Napa Wix oil filer and air filter of Chinese origin with about 50 % of dust & dirt contamination.
Removal of the major engine components revealed unusual wearing properties to all shell bearings and of course destruction of oil control rings ! ( the reasons for the original decision to teardown)
Of particular concern was the upper big end bearing shells that had a shiny strip amounting to about 30% width of the the shell bearing in question. Numbers 2 & 3 rod bearing heavily scoured creating a channel like groove clear through the copper lead flashing to the backing steel shell of about a qtr of the bearing length.
Other bearings shells showed similar scour traces but NOT to the same same depth of degradation. Dirt pitting was evident throughout most of the engine bearing shells observed
Oil tests showed no adverse conditions of metal or carbon nor silica contamination other than normal amounts .
Observations of the crankshaft oil gallery drillings revealed again related erosion of the crank counter bore recesses being somewhat oval in nature due to erosion.
Submitting samples to Clevite /Mahle for secondary investigation, the confirmed conclusion from their chief engineer is that carbon scouring is damaging the engine crankshaft & bearings in some case to a point of destruction due to the material erosion & dirt contamination.
This is for now for us at Linden a cause for more more in depth investigation and suggest remedial & preventative measures ! An encore for sure, plus a second appearance at least
Maybe with luck an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall but this really would be workshop musings --Engineering reports even in Victoriana times were never regarded as prose of romantic composition .
Case of the Carbon Scour to be continued.
Don't let yours fall to the carbon scour scourge.
Dennis
It wouldn't be right in this text as not to include carbon's abrasive cousin in this submission as to be without it! Consequently this technical observation would have no tangible relevance other than what might be profoundly categorized as musings of the workshop, but physical evidence is afoot ! Hence, it is called "in short" gentlemen and to you the tender fairer sex reading this might call the dastardly common or garden dust & dirt known as "silica" ! In some circles if not all these manifestations known to all as crankshaft & shell bearing failures on OM642 Sprinter engines!
Again in short the word "scouring" is observed as a salient problem not to be overlooked and caused mostly by that black lurking b-laggard in all diesel engines called Carbon or Soot!
Those of dubious filters and inevitable remiss of that what is of common but expensive overheads, called maintenance & giving cause to popular expressions of our latter day rise; This in short called stealerships by popular expression & involvement, plus those terrible grubby Independent repair shops that seem to plague every nook, cranny, & corner of our societies offering advice to the unwary & what one might call highway robbers like Dick Turpin! Obviously made familiar in this case with terms like "Stand and Deliver" being the hue and cry of the latter day in advanced motor vehicle repair facilities all facing the "travails" of the common man!. Akin that is it might be said to having a trophy wife I suppose, that may give you pecuniary nightmares of a particular fashion such as having an unfettered Mastercard in her tender hands on the High St or you retiring on a full stomach and having a mental fit during the night thinking of big end bearings of that broken beloved perambulation called a Sprinter van or GL or E Class "something " What worse the mental convulsions in the middle of Montana with population sum of zero and a dead Sprinter showing "start blocking" as a fault! ! Sadly that this situation has no romantic significance in the the realms of Victorian prose such as it was when you purchased it new with great expectations of the trouble free open road ! These are modern day manifestations are simply as the eloquent conviction made popular by writer's tragedy and of adversity of the dreaded eras depicted with Charles Dickens and his Greek tragedy like novels of humanistic kind.,
Consequently in spite of efficacious attempts to categorize the problem and fend off boastful statements by pundits, including "wisciouos false claims" bordering upon the absurd ! I have this to report with supporting observations including substantiation support from Mahle/Clevite; those renown engine bearing & piston manufacturers of some notoriety and motor industry fame !
The Specimen
2011 Sprinter van with OM642 engine.
Mileage to failure investigation 179,000 miles
Symptoms high oil consumption.
Observations upon tear down.
Engine had been run on various oil brands & weights due to consumption problems. Filters currently installed were all aftermarket including a Napa Wix oil filer and air filter of Chinese origin with about 50 % of dust & dirt contamination.
Removal of the major engine components revealed unusual wearing properties to all shell bearings and of course destruction of oil control rings ! ( the reasons for the original decision to teardown)
Of particular concern was the upper big end bearing shells that had a shiny strip amounting to about 30% width of the the shell bearing in question. Numbers 2 & 3 rod bearing heavily scoured creating a channel like groove clear through the copper lead flashing to the backing steel shell of about a qtr of the bearing length.
Other bearings shells showed similar scour traces but NOT to the same same depth of degradation. Dirt pitting was evident throughout most of the engine bearing shells observed
Oil tests showed no adverse conditions of metal or carbon nor silica contamination other than normal amounts .
Observations of the crankshaft oil gallery drillings revealed again related erosion of the crank counter bore recesses being somewhat oval in nature due to erosion.
Submitting samples to Clevite /Mahle for secondary investigation, the confirmed conclusion from their chief engineer is that carbon scouring is damaging the engine crankshaft & bearings in some case to a point of destruction due to the material erosion & dirt contamination.
This is for now for us at Linden a cause for more more in depth investigation and suggest remedial & preventative measures ! An encore for sure, plus a second appearance at least
Maybe with luck an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall but this really would be workshop musings --Engineering reports even in Victoriana times were never regarded as prose of romantic composition .
Case of the Carbon Scour to be continued.
Don't let yours fall to the carbon scour scourge.
Dennis
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