Craig,
I don't know why anyone would want to buy a 240D this old as a project, even with a cleaner body because of the cost of a rebuilt engine exceeds the value of the car and even if the engine is running OK now, based of the numbers of accounts of blowby, many will need to be rebuilt in the next few years.

I have a file folder filled with maintenance and repair receipts. Every receipt states a mileage and date. You can follow the car's mileage history from its purchase date all the way through until today by the stack of receipts, so the car does have only 143,000. The body, while not terrible by michigan standards, was not my primary concern because mechanically the car seemed sound.

katja,
I do not know where you live, but I cannot find an engine or rust bucket 240Ds around the detroit area, in fact although I have only owned this car for 6 weeks, I had been looking for a diesel for about 6 months and the only thing I found for less than a couple of thousand (was looking for a biodiesel project) was an 83 Mercedes 300D that needed at trans and 3 or 4 VWs. I did find some engines in some junk yards but they were never runnable and the yards all had an as-is policy, especially because the length of time they had all been sitting. You have to remember too that it is hard to find any 1976 car that doesn't have a ton of miles: Most 1976 gas car died by 1996 and the diesels that didn't had 11 more years to rack up the miles. For 1976 car driven the average 12k a years they would have 372,000 miles on them today. I know there are still some floating around with lower mileage but I think the number is a lot fewer than people think. I think mine may have had low miles because this car was in the repair shop A LOT and it may be possible that the POs were scarred enough be being stranded multiple times that they started to restrict the car to shorter trips. I have decided to pull the engine and tear it down. I may be able to sleeve and re-ring it (if the pistons are good) for a few hundred, leaving the rest of the engine alone. Either way, if I do part the car it won't matter if the engine is in or out and my curiously about the cylinder condition will be satisfied.

If anyone knows of a pre-1976 240D engine or wreck in the Detroit area I would be interested in looking at it.