oil runs all down the side of the engine
from the breather tube...

Suggest you investigate a vacuum leak, perhaps in the brake booster. You
may say what does THAT have to do with the motor's excessive blow by?
The vacuum pump vents INTO the engine so a vacuum leak somewhere will
add to the motor's natural blow by and so cause a mess.

But if you want another engine Metric Motors will be happy to talk rebuild.

Here are some pictures of my engine after I got my it back from
Metric:

http://inyopro.com/left_side.jpg

http://inyopro.com/right_side.jpg

Metric does not do engine management.  That means that they do not
pull engines or put them in the car.  That is up to you.  Their shop
specializes in engine remanufacture.  They do not rebuild turbos
either, but send them out to be rebuilt.  I brought my engine in on a
trailer and came and picked it up the same way.  Be sure to chain the
engine down securely with chain clamp-type tighteners as the freeways
down there in the LA basin are in terrible shape and bounce things all
over.  I wonder how long we are going to keep kidding ourselves that
grinding down the top surface of roadways poured in the 1950s is a
solution to moving forward with a transportation system?  We need
leadership to move to fast rail and soon . . .

I have one thing that I would say is a concern or something to be
aware of when sending your motor to Metric to be remanufactured.  Make
sure you take everything off that Metric does not, as it's regular
work flow, put back together.  I left my turbo on, and when I went to
get the engine, Metric had not put it back on, as usually they get the
engines with the turbo off.  So I had to figure out how to put it
together without the benefit of having taken it apart, which made it a
lot harder.  You need to get clear with Mike first exactly what they
put back together in the end.  Either negotiate the engine
remanufacture price with everything put back together or make sure you
take everything apart yourself first because putting things together
with no experience taking them apart is difficult.

Other than that miscommunication I am very happy with the engine so
far.  I haven't run it yet, obviously, but the thing looks great and
Mike and his crew are extremely helpful and knowledgable.

I took me many, many hours to remove all the peripheral accessories
and pull the engine, and I know it is going to take a few days of
labor to put the motor back in and get everything hooked up.  Paying
by the hour for that would take this job into the $13,000 range, I
think.  So I would plan on doing the stuff that does not require
special skill yourself, but I think it is a smart idea to leave the
precision stuff to experts who are in practice, have connections with
skilled machine shops for outside work like crank hardening and turbo
rebuilds, and have the equipment in house to do the job right.  I
would have over $4500 in parts to do the engine like it is, with newly
rebuilt injection pump and turbo, and I paid only about $1000 more to
have experts do the job and have an engine with a guarantee in case a
mistake was made in the assembly, which I doubt when I see the care
that Metric put into remanufacturing this engine.

They sleeved and replaced with standard pistons at no extra charge.
They did grind my crank, but they send them out to be rehardened after
they grind them and then check for trueness and rebalance them.  The
entire engine was shrink wrapped to seal out dirt and dust when I
picked it up and all openings were professionally capped.

Paul

If you have excessive blowby you will just be playing "Whack a Mole"
if you try to stop oil from leaking.  160,000 is kind of low milage to
need a rebuild, but there are several possiblities as to why the
engine could be worn early.  Are you sure the speedometer was not
changed out for a lower mileage one before you bought the car?

Maybe they did not change the oil often enough and so much dirt got in
the engine it got ground down early.

I got 396,000 out of my engine, changing the oil every 2000 miles, but
it hasn't been like driving a new car for a long time.  It's been hard
to start on cold mornings and leaked enough oil to leave a mess
anywhere I parked for years.  It will be great to drive with out
leaking oil all over the place.  And the car will be much more
pleasant to work on without all that black grease and grime
everywhere.

Paul

Your engine is too young to be bad... Have you tried running Marvel Mystery
Oil in your diesel fuel... 4 oz to 10 gallons?

The rebuilt motor I told you about is by MB factory. They have diesel motors
ready to go... they will simply exchange your engine at the dealer.