OM617 powered 2000 Chevy Blaser 4x4 build thread

[ebacherville]

tonight I made a bunch of progress..

First I made a new carrier bearing setup for the drive shaft , got ahold of a 45mm bearing and pillow block and fitted it, absolutely perfect!!


Then I putzed with the electrical system, also picked up a new Chevy oil pressure sender unit.. since the old one I busted when removing it from the old Chevy motor.. all the factory gauges, minus the speedo will be working

The i decided to make the throttle cable assembly, this consisted of hacking up some of the stock Chevy stuff and making the bits i needed to make the chevy throttle cable work with the Benz setup... worked out well.. I'll get a photo of it tomorrow.

Then I went to the old Benz shell and was looking at the kick down switch... Please confirm this if I'm correct, it looks as if when at full throttle it applies 12v to the solenoid.. or is it the other way around it's normally got 12v and then when at full throttle it cuts the voltage?? I didn't have a voltmeter handy , but it's simply one wire to the solenoid and looks like 2 wires into the foot switch.. also any one know how how much current flows through this circuit? I may move the switch inside the engine bay instead of at the foot pedal.. If it s small currents levels i could use a simple micro switch on the throttle linkage, if its higher current I could just do the same a wire in a relay to handle higher current levels.

Tomorrow I'll be able to get the steel for the motor mounts, to bad I have a trip to go on this weekend.. or i could get them done this weekend.. We'll see how far I get tomorrow night on them.

[ebacherville]

Well since i was out of town this weekend not much got done on the project, however i did get over to the shop this afternoon, and totally finished the carrier bearing mount.. that's completed, and then after that i started looking at what it was going to take to get the radiator and oil cooler mounted.. started digging into that.. looks like it will all work..

Still waiting for my steel to come in for the motor mounts.. hopefully Tuesday.

More to come.

[ebacherville]

well not much to report to day besides working on the gauges.. i figured out how I'm going to setup the oil pressure sender, just got to get the bits for that tomorrow, and tomorrow hopefully my steel plate will be in for the motor mounts.

[akimball442]

This is cool. It has the gears turning in my head. Previous to my MB addiction, I was a GM nut- I still have a couple, I'll admit.

GM slightly, and poorly re-engineered the Oldsmobile 350CID V8 in the late 70s as a N/A diesel engine. They had countless failures, and by the time they had made the engine reliable, the damage had been done and nobody would buy one.

Interestingly, GM's V8 diesel was rated for 120HP, and 220ft-lbs of torque. Our beloved 617 turbodiesel is rated for 125HP, and 170ft-lbs of torque.

I'm thinking it might be sweet to install an MB driveline into an old GM car. I wonder if the 50ft-lbs less of torque would be a huge problem? The w126 weighs about as much as an early 80s full sized Cadillac...

[ebacherville]

Originally Posted by akimball442

This is cool. It has the gears turning in my head. Previous to my MB addiction, I was a GM nut- I still have a couple, I'll admit.

GM slightly, and poorly re-engineered the Oldsmobile 350CID V8 in the late 70s as a N/A diesel engine. They had countless failures, and by the time they had made the engine reliable, the damage had been done and nobody would buy one.

Interestingly, GM's V8 diesel was rated for 120HP, and 220ft-lbs of torque. Our beloved 617 turbodiesel is rated for 125HP, and 170ft-lbs of torque.

I'm thinking it might be sweet to install an MB driveline into an old GM car. I wonder if the 50ft-lbs less of torque would be a huge problem? The w126 weighs about as much as an early 80s full sized Cadillac...

Im sure the OM617 setup would weigh less than one of those old diesel setups.. it weighs allot less than a 4.3l v6 with atransfercase on ti fromt he blazer.. as for the OM617 making a decent replacement yeah , also remember its high reving like a gas engine.. perfect for swaps..

Also I'm not a power hungry person so even in my case the 4.3l is more HP and torque.. however the blazer weighs less than the old MB body so iI know ill be just fine with the power of the OM617 in a lighter shell.

the turbo diesels challenges are these , its length, its LONG.. its also a bit taller than any V configuration.. and it's front oil pan.. other than that its pretty basic swap stuff.. This would be ideal for a inline 6 swap.. so many older pickups and or sedans that came equiped with inline 6's.. however I'm doing it in a blazer that was only designed for the 4.3l v6 and you can make it fit in there but its a bit of a squeeze.. the radiator is going to be moved to the front of the old rad support to make it happen..

[ebacherville]

The Oil sender mount is made.. had to create a adapter from the nylon oil pressure hose to 1/2 pipe thread and add a ground for the blazers electric sender.. have 2 bits comming to finish this , a m12x1.5 to 1/8" thread adapter and some new nylon hose..

Next is the water temp sensor.. any one know what thread this bugger is on the blazers sender?

[ebacherville]

Figured out the temp sender... need some more bits for it.. Ill try to get them tomorrow.

Next is the gear selection display on the dash and linkage to the benz tranny

[akimball442]

The gear selector should be fun. I suspect based on the age of the vehicle that it's a CAN communication between the PCM and the dash based on date from the GM transmission's NS/PRNDL switch.

If you are leaving the PCM there to communicate with various other things, you may be able to rig it up somehow by installing micro switches or something.

They're also likely all grounds.

[ebacherville]

Originally Posted by akimball442

The gear selector should be fun. I suspect based on the age of the vehicle that it's a CAN communication between the PCM and the dash based on date from the GM transmission's NS/PRNDL switch.

If you are leaving the PCM there to communicate with various other things, you may be able to rig it up somehow by installing micro switches or something.

They're also likely all grounds.

Actually it wont be to hard.. no wiring involved more of it is making linkages at the proper ratio.. the gear selection thing on the dash is simply a multi position switch that senses the rotation of the shaft on the shift linkage.. very simple.. the thing like having to push the brake to shift from park, reverse lights, ect is all taken care of my the GM computer according to the rotation of that switch.. what I'll do is put the selection switch in and then run a linkage from that to the benz shift linkage, hard part is making the switch be in the same gear as the benz tranny, but its just the ratios on the linkages.. nothing more

Actually I was expecting the blazer to be "smarter" than it actually is and it really isn't smart at all.. it doesn't even care that 90% of the sensors are not even hooked up, it just lights up the "service engine soon light".. I'll pull the bulb from that and that's taken care of.

[ebacherville]

No steel plate yet.. Grr this is starting to tick me off. Did pick up some bits, but didnt get over to the shop tonight but i got the whole weekend open.. so well see what i get done.