" The Black Death" How can I prevent or prolong re-occurrence?

[VitoVanMan]

Having recently encountered the Black Death, I was interested in people thoughts on how to prevent or prolong its re-occurrence?

 

[00slk]

Fix it, and regular maintenance
Hallo and welcome by the way

 

[MinionBob]

Black death being injector leakage/blow by?

No prevention that I can think of.

When you get it fixed, get the injector seats cleaned/faced as necc along with new seals/bolts. Simply slapping a new seal in is probably not the best way to do it...

 

[mioba]

You cant prevent it if you have an injector leak seal. It becomes visible (gunk) and you hear it (rough running) and you smell it.
The seals simply wear.
clean everywhere, Remove injector. Clean everything. The crud chips away nicely when dry or turns to a gloop to scrape off with petrol.
Key is to properly clean the seal face, use new seals of course and a new bolt to the correct torque.
Make sure no crud remains in the bolt hole otherwise your torque wont be right.
Its one of those a good home mechanic will note by periodically popping the bonnet and looking about to catch it before it comes worse.
If on top of your maintrnancr no worries.
Its like having to change a tyre when it gets bold, it happens and deal with it.

If you just change the seal - you will be at it in a year again.

 

[VitoVanMan]

I appreciate the fact that injector seals leak and I have been experimenting ways to prolong the inevitable.
I don't understand the extra long clamp M6 stretch bolts in my Mercedes engine? In other cars I have owned they are either M8 bolts or M8 stud and nuts.
To this end I have fitted an M8 stainless steel Allen bolt.
3 years ago, I had an issue were I needed a complete set of injectors after being towed to the local MB dealer. After fitting, there's a two years warranty. Within the warranty period, I had one injector blow out and three seals replaced.
I fitted the M8 bolt before I had this issue. So when the main dealer fitted the four new injectors, three had M6 stretch bolts and a single M8 bolt. To date only the M8 bolt has not leaked.
I have had another injector seal leak after the warranty period and I have fitted a Honda seal, as I have found these seals seem to work better than the Mercedes seals. As I purchased them from the main local Honda dealer, the guy told me they have sold these seals to hundreds of Mercedes owners so than they do to Honda owners. So I was wandering if other folks have used Honda seals and how they found them compared to the standard Mercedes seals.

 

[Doug1234]

In the past I have used a couple of Honda washers on my om642 engine when two injectors suffered Black Death , but when I replaced all 6 injectors about 4 years ago I used the standard Mercedes washers but first I annealed them to make them soft. They are not completely flat and being hard as they are then they have to flatten out when the bolt is torqued down. I have had no issues with using them softened up
The stainless m8 bolt you have used is a double edged sword because normally using any bolt other than a stock one results in it ripping out as it will not expand at the same rate as the cylinder head.

I will say the long m6 in my om642 did feel weird as they really seem loose until they get half way in ( new bolts ) and the coating on the bolts always reminds me of a bad galvanising coating.
Acetone dissolves Black Death making the job easier , not a hard job it’s just the cleaning and making sure it’s all spotless and threads are 100% clean.. worst thing is if like me you wear glasses as it’s hard to see inside head at injector base to see if seat cutter is polishing it up nicely.
The Honda seals are slightly softer than the stock Mercedes seals so I expect they are more forgiving if the injector seat is not cleaned up properly .. get one of each and scratch them with a stanly knife blade and you will see what I mean ( new one of each and then bin them after this experiment because if you use them they will leak )