XJ: Mercedes Diesel --> Jeep Cherokee

[ApacheResistance]

Buddy of mine is selling his tires. Someone offered to trade him Mercedes diesel jeep stuff. Gave the guy my number.

Anyways, as you might imagine I just bought more parts for this. This project is starting to get off the ground.

Bought two more om617 turbo diesel motors. One with 140k and one for parts. 75% complete the guy says. Also bought the om617 --> ax15 adapter plate and the motor mounts.

Paid $500 for it all.

Also found a "mud truck" cherokee on Craigslist for $1200. Thing is the ugliest thing I've seen but I'm 90% sure it has a late 60s kingpin d60. Also known as the "snow fighter". They're worth stupid money.

[Richard buttocks]

Originally Posted by ApacheResistance

What stopped you?

I've never even heard of that motor. Just googled it and i've never even seen that car.

I gave up because my "new" xj isnt that bad on fuel even with 31's and not regeared
PLUS
The cost of said conversion to gain a small amount of economy doesnt make it worth it
Neither does the loss of a decent amount of horse power.

[layback40]

Originally Posted by ApacheResistance

What stopped you?

I've never even heard of that motor. Just googled it and i've never even seen that car.

The engine he is talking about is a 5 cylinder version of the 350 diesel that you guys know as a rod bender. Its basically a stroked OM602. MB licensed the Koreans to build cars, initially 4wd & commercials with that engine. They also built a copy of the 320 inline 6 petrol.

[Richard buttocks]

Why do you say its a stroked version?
The musso motor IS a om602
Mercedes built vehicles with a 2.9 om602

[layback40]

Originally Posted by Richard buttocks

Why do you say its a stroked version?
The musso motor IS a om602
Mercedes built vehicles with a 2.9 om602

The 602 came out in about 87, I have one. It was a 5 cylinder version of the 603. In Australia the 602 2.5 & the 603 3.0 came out in the W124 body in na form only.

MB then stroked the 603 to make the 350, it was a 603 as well. It had problems in the USA with rod bending. This problem did not occur in other parts of the world & was believed to be caused by the poor quality diesel sold in the USA. There were several upgrades to the con rods for the USA cars.
To determine what one you have you need to look at the three numbers after the 602, that is say a 602.950 or similar.
The original 602 was 2.5 ltr 5 cyl , the 603 was a 3ltr 6 cyl. the 350 (also a 603) was a 3.5 ltr 6 cyl. The 606 was a 2.5 ltr 5 cyl twin ohc na, it replaced the 603. IIRC there were some 606 turbo's made. It has a 602 block.

The Korean engines were variants. The 2.7 was basically the 350 om603 less one cylinder. it was a 602 style engine, 5 cyl. it has the updated con rods. Dont know if any made it to the USA in vans.
There were other variants of the 602, probably thats where the 2.9 came from. I dont believe that a 2.9 was actually made by MB, probably made by some one under license.
The Korean engines dont have the longevity of the German built engines. Probably caused by lower casting quality.

The 617 that you have predates all of this. The turbo & na versions are quite different to each other. Only a limited number of parts are interchangeable. Bolting a turbo on a na engine is not a good idea.

[ApacheResistance]

Been up to a bunch of stuff recently. Not much jeep stuff unfortunately. Been mostly working on my vanagon. Finally got that thing to run after much troubleshooting only to find out the PO had installed a kill switch tucked up way far under the dash. Now it's time to do brakes, brake lines, master cylinder, slave cylinder, yata yata the whole nine on this. Want it to be a reliable dd.

Been eying air compressors for a while now and finally made the leap and bought one. Bought an IR 5 HP 2 stage 80 gallon air compressor. Poured a slab outside the garage to save space in the garage and reduce noise.

Now it's running 220 power out there and piping up shop air. Should be pretty sweet once i get that going. After that i want to build a welding table. I'll have my welding table, then my welder to the right of that, then my plasma to the right of that. Should be a pretty sweet setup. Then it's cleaning the garage and time to start cranking on these projects.

As for the jeep i'm still undecided. Pretty sure i'm going to be chopping it hard.

Picked up a D60 out of a late 90s E350 van for $200. (pretty much the ideal axle setup.) You just cut the spindles off the tube, sell/scrap the rest of the housing, and put your spindles on whatever housing you prefer.

Going to either go with spidertrax or ruffstuff axle housings.

[GMEMUD]

Originally Posted by Richard buttocks

I looked into this
Even have a merc motor....

The ssangyong musso motor is a better option imho as it has a rear sump...

And plentiful in Australia.

My 2c.

I believe these are made by ssangyong under license.....not the same durability I'm told.