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200Tdi Piston Removal With Engine In Situ


Andy

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after months of putting it off i finally ripped the heap apart today to try & find why i get loads of smoke & sod all power as well as very poor starting. Ive suspected the rings for a while as i was running 60-70% SVO for ages without knowing it gummed the rings up. There has been several threads on here suggesting the engine must come out to remove the strenghener plate at the bottom of the block which also put me off trying.

well it is possible to remove the plate without getting behind the flywheel. take the sump off, then the oil pump - two bolts you can see the holes on the pic of the pump sat in the sump. then the three bolts on the OSF corner of the engine & the three across the back of the plate. lastly the four bottom bellhousing bolts, as you remove the last of these keep hold of the plate as it'll fall.

now i know i have one broken oil control ring - it fell in two as the piston came up so im going to replace all the rings. having checked one bigend i can just see a bit of the backing material so i'd better do the bigends too. anything else worth doing without further stripdown or real expense? ie is it worth stripping the oil pump? i never had any oil pressure problems so believe its fine.

should i re-use the bigend nuts? i assume these are thread locked?

do the pistons etc look ok to you lot? i cant see any problems. there was a ring of brittle soot like stuff at the top of the bores & over the rings, i assume this was the chipfat as it seemed different to the normal coke in an engine.

lastly i cant get the pistons right out, the conrods dont seem to fit up the bores - is that normal? its not a great problem they are high enough to do the rings anyway.

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thats what i thought. i guess working around the axle & crank im probably not pushing them quite straight & catching the bores more than i should. just didnt want to ruin the bores so i thought i'd stop & ask, besides its cuppa time :D with digestives

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Yep pistons will go out through the block but its a fiddle with the crank in position, make sure you dont catch the oil spray pipes that spray oil under the piston and the crank journels.

I am not sure about fitting rings straight in - i thought you were supposed to hone the bores before fitting but I am sure someone else here can give an answer to that one.

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big ends arent shot really, just showing a touch of wear - to be expected at 140k really. im trying not to do anything i dont really need to do, not currently sure if im keeping it long. kind of bored with the thing at the mo. i might pop a crank bearing off & have a look though. can you change them without removing the crank?

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The thin band of carbon deposit at the top of the bores should be removed before attempting to remove the pistons, as they can prevent the pistons from being removed/damage new rings and/or pistons on reassembly. The con rod should go up the bore if it's nice and square in the bore (rotate the crank, so that the relevant journal is right out of the way). Because of the way you have done the dismantling, you have to remove the pistons, clean off the carbon deposit at the top of the bore, and also clean out the ring grooves prior to fitting new rings. Put the same piston back in the same bore it came out of, and don't clean off the carbon build-up that on the piston sides above the top compression ring. Make sure the new ring gaps are 120dg from each other, use engine oil to lube the bore and the piston. Are you going to use a ring compressor or two screwdrivers? I personally don't rate ring compressors, as the last click is never accurate enough. Don't know if you've ever replaced rings Andy, but they are very brittle and snap very easily. Use a broken bit of old ring to clean out the relevant groove - if you don't , the new rings probably won't go in the groove far enough to allow the assembly to fit back in the bore, and be very careful not to make the groove any wider than it should be. Rings moving up and down in their groove will make them snap.

Make sure the holes behind the oil scraper are clear.

The sharpness/brittle nature of the old rings means you will cut the tips of your index fingers (paper-cut type of thing).

Fitting the new rings to the piston will do the same cuts to the tips of your thumbs.

You can check the condition of 3 main bearings with the engine in the bay and attached to the gearbox. It's reasonably safe to say that if the ones you can get at are ok, then the others most likely will be too. Replace the big-end shells - the low cost of them makes it worthwhile, and re-using the old shells is a bit cheap and nasty to be honest.

Try to post more pics please. I'm going to do a total rebuild of a 200TDi engine soon, including re-bore, new pistons and rings, etc ,etc. Not having gone as far as you, it would be good to know what's what.

Les.

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its NOT coming out, if i was going to take it out it'd be out rather than stripped in situ. Ive never taken the pistons etc out of a car ive wanted to run ever again Les so its all new to me. all advice is good.

i'll have another go in a day or so to get the pistons right out. i suspect i just dont have the rods straight in the bores from whats been said. how does the screwdriver trick work? i was going to buy a ring compressor as i'd heard it was the correct way.

i will replace the bigends, as said its silly not to. bits will get ordered soon or i'll loose interest with it in bits & nothing to fix it with.

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As per the comments above, the pistons should come out upwards complete with conrods.

I'd strongly advise complete removal as I had a situation where the piston looked in A1

condition but on removal I could see the bore was very worn. I'd have been miffed if only

the rings were replaced and on start up to still have same smoky issues.

Personally I'd go for OE rings.

NB - the rings have to be positioned with the gaps at 120 degrees to each other with no

gaps on the thrust side (recess side IIRC).

I'd also agree with the recommendation of replacing the mains too as mine showed

similar wear to the big ends.

Many years ago on a Ford crossflow I managed to get these out by slackening all of the

main caps a turn and then removing one completely at a time. I then managed to slide

a new shell in pushing the old one out at the same time.

Be VERY careful not to damage the oil seals by allowing the crank to drop more than a

midgies todger on cap slackening.

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If you can get someone to give you a hand, then a spring compressor is fine. It's just that they sometimes don't lock with the ring compressed enough for the assembly to slide cleanly back into the bore. Two screwdrivers is just a way of compressing the rings in the bore without a special tool, and is quite fiddly.

Les.

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It is pretty straightforward and involves a drill and a honingtool (not sure what the correct name is). It consist of 3 grinding stones on springs and you rotate the drill at low RPM while moving it up and down the bore. I haven't done it myself but I have seen someone doing it. There must be someone on here who's got first hand experience.

Daan

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i dont know what im doing Daan, just that it was so bad before i had to try & do something. is honing easy/cheap? ive heard it removes the glaze so the new rings bed in - that correct?

Only with a land rover could you learn as you go. Good on you for tacking this job Andy. Did you get the pistons out yet?

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ahh yes i have seen them honing tools before. havent touched it since taking the pics. will get rings etc this week if i can & carry on saturday. too lazy & lacking a decent light source to do it in the evenings.

there is no mad rush for it atm, the weather is nice so im using my new bike anyway.

oh i only buy cars i can learn as i go. thats why my other car is a MG Midget they make a LR look technical when you take them apart!

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  • 2 weeks later...
ahh yes i have seen them honing tools before. havent touched it since taking the pics. will get rings etc this week if i can & carry on saturday. too lazy & lacking a decent light source to do it in the evenings.

there is no mad rush for it atm, the weather is nice so im using my new bike anyway.

oh i only buy cars i can learn as i go. thats why my other car is a MG Midget they make a LR look technical when you take them apart!

How are things going Andy?

I hope no news is good news! :)

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The honing tools that consist of a lot of balls on the end of wires are better than the 3-spring ones but more expensive. You should really remove the oil sprayers first but you can hone with them in situ if you are careful. If you own or can borrow an electronic drill it helps because the speed should be very low, about 60 rpm only.

LR says to change the big-end nuts, they don't mention the bolts though, or the main nuts. I changed mine but I know of plenty of others who haven't.

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I have had the pistons out of both of my last 300 and the 200 before all had cracked an oil ring on three and four.

Did whole thing in situ def worth honing bores, did not remove oil jets, used wd40 as a lubricant, wiped clean and dropped it all back together again.

Cheap honing tools on e-bay

I love pushrod engines as they are so easy to do.

Which is of course why i now have a TD5 :unsure:

Lynall

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