Any VR6 engine specialist in the house?

[crossy67]

Hi.

I have a customer who's bad luck has just come to an end. He has a V-Class with the V6 petrol engine bolted to an auto box in it. He called me the other day to say the car had returned from Spain and it was making a funny noise. I went and had a look. The top end was very rattly, there was no oil on the dipstick. We put 3 liters in and still there was no oil showing on the dipstick (I checked it wasn't running out the bottom) but when we started it it quietened down. He didn't want to wait for me to go get more oil so went into town to buy some more. He got about 10 foot and I noticed a stream of oil flowing from under the engine. Turns out an oil pressure switch had burst.

There was no oil under the car where is had been parked and no traces on the quiet road he'd driven down to park up so we can only assume it had been driven for a while with no oil at all.

I got it to the garage and started stripping things off. As suspected an oil pressure switch was the cause of the leak. I found a long term water leak which whilst not bad was annoying. I removed the filter and inspected it, finding some metal in it but not much. I also found the reason he didn't have an oil light, the led had burnt out, typical that it was the only one.

Removed the sump today and found a few traces of bearing material but again, very little. What I did find however was this.


It's a piece of a timing chain guide by the looks of things, I doubt it's been caused by the oil starvation so I assume the engine's been running without it for a while, especially as the oil pick up was full of other bits of it all mashed up. The owner doesn't want to spend any money on the vehicle as it's old, petrol and auto it's worth very little. If any one knows what the plastic bits are likely to be and if they're likely to be missed by the engine?

The crank and shells are in reasonable condition with just a few scuffs on the bearings so we're going to put a set in, flush the engine a few times and keep our fingers crossed.

Any info on the mystery plastic guide would be appreciated.

Thanks

[LarJammer]

failed timing chain guides are very common, have a quick google. not a quick job to replace though.

[finlo]

Are we talking about a Merc or a VW here?

[crossy67]

Merc with the V6 VW VR6 engine in.

[V6RUL]

This should be a variant of the VR6 in 24valve guise.
Here is a pic of the upper chain and you can see the 3 guides for the upper chain..

Here is a pic of the lower chain and guide..

Steve

[crossy67]

Thanks for that Steve. Can't make out clearly where all these plastic bits have come from but it's looking like lower guide. The car is a rite off if it needs chains or guides. Who's going to pay for that on a 15 year old (ish) 2.8 petrol, V6, Auto van?

[V6RUL]

The angles on your broken bits look too sharp to be from the guides, but I can't think where else.
It's a gearbox off job to inspect and will take half a day to strip down to find out.
Steve

[SuperchargedVR6]

I see my picture of a timed-up R32 engine is still doing the rounds

I don't recognise that plastic piece from either a 12V or 24V VR6 engine.

[crossy67]

Ta for your help everyone. Parts arrived today, wrong fking ones. I ordered two filters so I could ruse cheap oil for a flush then change to decent oil. Wrong filters! Oil pressure switch, wrong. Shells wrong. Everything sent is for a 3.0tdi. Why can't people on phones listen when you tell them what you want?

One other quick question. Autodata (lying piece of crap) says replace bolts. I can't find anywhere that sells them other than ARP's. Is Autodata wrong again?