Engine life?

[Bearcat]

It may sound a stupid question but reassurance is a great thing. Have a 280SL 1970, says 104k on the clock but that could mean a million and 4k for a 35yr old car. The car is near mint but my mechanic reckons the cylinders and all assoc parts in it te block are orig. Can this be true? The car dug me out of a hole recently when my main car let me down....did 1000k in two weeks and it didnt miss a beat. Are these engines over engineered and bullet proof or do I have a lucky one? I just change the oil every 2k and thats it.

280SL 1970

[Cees Klumper]

These engines are very well engineered indeed, especially when taking into account what was common in those days for engine life. AFAIK a properly maintained engine can last maybe 200K miles (with maybe a cylinder head rebuild along the way) before the cylinders, pistons etc need to be redone. But others (Joe Alexander, Dr Benz, Arthur Dalton etc) will know more about this than I. I recall a relatively recent post from Joe where he refers to one of his rally cars fitted with an M130 engine (microbeast predecessor?) that just kept going through the roughest of times.

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[ChrisInNashville]

200K?

I thought maybe a million???   I thought MB was notorious for that...

[ja17]

Hello,
Yes these enginew will last well over 200,000 miles.  A valve job may be needed along the way.

"Garages Kill" use your car and maintain it well and it can go way over 200,000 miles, one million? possibly.

Yes Cees, the "microbeast" was a local legend around here. We took a 160,000 mile rusted out 280SE sedan (M130  engine), removed the engine did a valve job, hooked up a four speed, droped it into a lowered and lightened 1970 Mercedes 250 coupe with a lightened body and 4:08 rear end then went racing. It did zero to 60 mph in 6.0 sec. would smoke the tires. 255 X 16" R1 tires made it leathal. It spent the next seven or eight years surprising many local Porsche owners. we took it to a National MB club event one time  and brought back six driving awards between two drivers. Eventually we built several more of these for other enthusiasts. All are fonddly remembered by their owners.

Never did break the engine.

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[n/a]

these 280 engines , running with modern lubricants will run into the 200/300,000 miles no problem
 What kills them , silly people steam cleaning them , then parking them up damp , then the bores corrode, Lazy people not servicing them, people not watching the oil pressure gauge, on cars that use oil, general lack of maintainance , like running with old hard water hoses, which split and cook the engine.
As these cars are so old , you need to be fortunate that your car has had a few previous GOOD OWNERS thats where good fortune comes in. john from www.slpagoda.com

[Naj ✝︎]

Unless the timing chain breaks - for reasons yet not known  :oops:   .

In theory they may do the high mileages quoted but they started out life using mineral oils etc. and in their mid-life (10 to 20 years) most had 'average' maintenance. A lot of cars seen advertised with around 100k miles claim to have a rebuilt engine. I would say, it all boils down to regular use and maintenance.
One 'guru' said to me 'When you get bored, change the engine oil'. Can you 'over do' this?  :?:

 

quote:john from www.slpagoda.com

Welcome to the forum.
We hope you will share some 'trade' stories and experiences with us  

naj

65 230SL
68 280SL

[J. Huber]

Here's a nice story. We have an older Gentleman in our town (80 plus I'd say) who has had his '66 230SL from new. It was actually his second, he had a 63 before that. Anyway, apparently he worked in SoCal half the year, and resided here rest of time. Commuted w/ his one and only car for 30 years, I think he said. Anyway, he told me he is at 850,000 and still going. He did mention he has had "3 engines" (which could be 3 rebuilds? -- not sure) but still...


James
63 230SL

[Naj ✝︎]

Then there was this one owner 1.2 milliom km. car at the 2003 Heidelberg gathering claimed to have original engine.

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naj

65 230SL
68 280SL

[Cees Klumper]

What is important in this discussion is total miles on the engine without a bottom-end rebuild. You can bore out the cylinders and grind the crankshaft twice (to second oversize pistons and second undersize bearings, respectively) so that should bring any engine to at least around 500K miles (800k km's). Then, after that, the cylinders can be sleeved and a replacement crankshaft can be dropped in to start the whole process all over again (and again and again), all on the original engine (which, after all, is nothing more than a very substantial chunk of cast iron). The critical part is in the sleeving of the cylinders.

So, yes, one could do over a (two, three) million miles with the original engine, because it never really needs to 'wear out'.

What seems to be critical for longevity is proper lubrication with the right oil (synthetics being the standard nowadays) and proper tuning. Moderate to high RPM driving should not hurt the engine.

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Cees Klumper]

quote:Originally posted by naj

Then there was this one owner 1.2 milliom km. car at the 2003 Heidelberg gathering claimed to have original engine.

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naj

65 230SL
68 280SL

Seems like the paint (driver door?) needs some attention  

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Bearcat]

Cess you say Synthetic oil is the standard now days. My man has me using the bog green oil duckhams 20-50....cheap as chips but as I said I change my oil more often that I have haircuts. I'll take an oil brand recommendation if you think duckhams is not up to scratch.

[Malc]

Bearcat.
Change the oil and filter every 5000 miles or twice a year will see the engine keep on going and going and going.

The biggest "killer" is not the oil it'self, but the water, carbon and acids that build up in it. Thats why if you going to store your car, say for the winter, change the oil and filter before you "put it to bed"

My daily hack 1991 Saab 900 has 187,000 miles on it and it's still the original engine, I do run it on synthetic though and have spaced the service interval out to 10,000miles

Nothing wrong with Duckhams, and if you change it ever 5000 miles or so thats great.
I haven't seen it in a while, well not here in NE Scotland.

Malc

[Naj ✝︎]

Bearcat,

quote:I'll take an oil brand recommendation if you think duckhams is not up to scratch

Duckhams is a good brand. I just changed over to it!
I prefer it to store brands like Halfords, Unipart etc. where I'm not sure what I'm getting.
Since these 'babes' are not doing a lot of miles, changes twice a year regardless of mileage??

naj

65 230SL
68 280SL

[Malc]

Naj,
Yes I would still change the oil and filter every six months even if your only doing a few miles. Cheap insurance I think

Malc

[Benz Dr.]

( just watch the bricks for this answer )

 Your engine will last 150,000 miles more or less. Cylinder wear is roughly .001'' per 10,000 miles. At .015'' of cylinder wear the rings will start to break or it will be very hard to start and use a lot of oil. If the head hasn't been pulled the amount of wear will probably be very high on the top end with that many miles.
All this is for a car with normal to poor service work. This level of cylinder wear is considered normal by MB and is expected. Better oils and more service would give you more miles of use but some parts like seals have a certain life and will start to leak over time.

Dan Caron's
 SL Barn
benzbarn@ebtech.net
 slbarn.mbz.org

[Ben]

quote:The car dug me out of a hole recently when my main car let me down....did 1000k in two weeks and it didnt miss a beat. Are these engines over engineered and bullet proof or do I have a lucky one? I just change the oil every 2k and thats it.

........as you well know my car does that kind of mileage regularly with no probs !  When I rebuilt it at 122700 miles I reckon the head had never been off it ! Just as Dan says there was some bore wear but plenty of broken rings, I reckon it HAD sat for a while and was then mercilessly started and used without caution ! It still had the original pistons which from memory had something like 81.97mm on them !

Anyway there was wear in the valve guides, they were shot and loose in the head, but the valve seats were fine ! The fact that these cars have plastic valve seals instead of rubber probably means that once you have any movement or wear in the guides you get an increase in oil consumption which may be masked for a while on another car if the seals were rubber !

Definitely regular use and regular oil changes with good quality oil will see far more mileage than a car that is only used occasionally, like a lot of SL's when used as summer cars.

Regards,
Ben in Ireland.
'64 230SL 4sp.

[rwmastel]

quote:Originally posted by Bearcat

I just change the oil every 2k and thats it.

I would recommend reviewing the maintenance schedule in the owners manual.  You should be doing more than just changing the oil.  With the limited use that your car appears to get you can adjust the interval of these other services.  Regardless, you should be doing more than simple oil changes.

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420