Oil Smell inside Cabin

[Klausy]

My Brother in Law has a W203 '53 plate Diesel.

When asked how it is going he tells me that they aren't using it due to a horrible oily smell being blown into the cabin from somewhere.

Does anybody know the cause/fix for this/

 

[trapperjohn]

Probably his leak off pipes perished or an injector seal gone. Not too expensive to fix. Bet his MPG went down whilst he was using it too.

 

[Klausy]

What's a leak off pipe?

 

[renault12ts]

It's a pipe connected to an injector on top of the engine...if it breaks it leaks diesel.
Or it could be an injector seal. Either way these are not expensive to fix.

 

[Troon]

Or it could be an injector seal. Either way these are not expensive to fix.

...depending on how long they've been putting up with the oily smell.

A leaky injector seal gives rise to a phenomenon known as "black death", whereby the combustion products in the cylinder are leaking out past the injector to the top of the head. Catch it quickly after the smell starts, as I did last week, and it's an hour's leisurely job costing a few pence for a new seal and clamp bolt plus about £15 for the 50g pot of special injector grease you need, which will last forever for the home mechanic.

Leave it a bit longer and you'll have some cleaning up to do, and you may need a tool to extract the injector and another to clean its bore up. £100–150 and a couple of hours, possibly worth getting someone else to do it instead of paying for the tool. Increased risk of damaging the injector.

Leave it longer still and it can eventually result in an engine looking like this:

This can cost thousands to fix, as there's hours of horrible cleaning and many replacement parts needed.

 

[Klausy]

Cheers for the advice gents.

I'll be passing this over to my bro-in-law.

 

[Stratman]

I had a similar problem on my W203 '04 diesel and found the problem to be leaky fuel pipes on the fuel pump.

Here's the thread with pictures.

And this one.

 

[Klausy]

Hi Stratman,

Was yours a home fix or garage job?

 

[Stratman]

I did it myself in about one hour. The hardest bit is removing the plate which is in front of the connections on the HP pump.