2005 Mercedes E320 CDI Engine Swap

Found myself really lacking on the page here and I figure I can make the attempt to keep track of my phone long enough that I can snap some pictures here and there. This week, an 05 E320 CDI which had locked up it's engine from water ingestion (or so is speculated). At the moment time was a concern, but I'll be allowed to dissect the old engine in an effort to see if anything is worth saving. They're expensive engines!

Here it is arriving on a pallet

Quick check to ensure no shipping damage

replacement engine put on a stand to prepare for a thorough degreasing and removing ancillary parts that will be replaced with new.

The junkyard that supplied this engine did a phenomenal job with its removal. They were very careful removing the parts they do not include and they did a fantastic job ensuring the engine was completely drained of fluids for its arrival. 

first order of business, injector and (oh no) glow plug removal

the one problem with these long shank glow plugs is the plug seat. when torqued incorrectly (or if the seat is dirty upon install) it will allow soot to bypass the seat and make it extremely difficult to remove the plug from the engine. In some cases, breaking off the non threaded portion and leaving it in the cylinder head. Luckily on this engine, this was the worst one and it came out with a bit of a fight.

Now that the engine was prepped for the most part, the shop Europa G gets put to work and brings the E320 in to complete the work.

couple hours later, the engine/transmission/subframe is removed as one assembly for ease of access. Everything will be getting serviced

Don't mind the gloves or the overall mess in the shop - there will be a few more blog posts with an Audi S4 from hell that is the cause of that mess - the last thing I was is something entering the turbo and damaging a fin, so a glove it is. 

transmission removed - what I don't have pictures of is the process used to remove the torque converter from the flex plate of an engine that won't rotate. It's a bit involved, but took about an hour of my time.

skipping ahead in the preparation of the replacement engine. exhaust manifold gasket replaced, replacement hardware should ALWAYS be used on the exhaust side. the copper nuts are egg shaped as to not back off

turbo installed, valve cover thoroughly degreased and resealed, PCV resealed and reinstalled

 

 resealed water pump (replacement engine's water pump was absolutely perfect), replacement idlers, front crank seal, oil filter cartridge installed

take a step back to admire the conduit everywhere that's crooked and realize you didn't take any pictures of the intake manifold R&R

Engine is placed on the subframe and ready to receive the transmission. 

step back and realize you hadn't taken any more pictures because the work flow was rapid. What was involved beyond the engine's reinstallation was coding the injectors into their respective holes for fuel quantity adaptations. Once the engine was started, the air mass sensor, fuel rail sensor, and air filter quality adaptations were reset. The rest of the vehicle was scanned via Xentry to find any further fault. 

So, with that, we conclude the project with a very happily running E320 CDI that will offer years of service down the line. The engine was a low mile, 90k unit that was entirely resealed for this application. The car is COMPLETELY outfitted with dynamic seating, heated/cooled seats, window shades, Navi, etc. It's about as fully optioned of a car as one could get - it has absolutely not a spec of rust on it and was dealer maintained it's entire life before flooding itself. Happy motoring!