Hello all
I have a decision to make that I would like some imput on. I have a '82 300SD with a bad engine. the car has 290k on the odometer but looks like it has been taken pretty good care of. I posted a thread about it back in April of this year, but the short story is this: After cruising down from Sacramento towards San Francisco the engine started loosing power and smoking like crazy on the San francisco Bay bridge.
I had it towed back to Sacramneto and eventually did a compression test that turned up as follows: #1- 395, #2- 390, #3- 60, #4- 395, #5-325. This was after adjusting the valves and letting MMO sit in the cylinders for a couple of days. I did a leak down test with my air compressor on #3 and #5 and it sounded like the air was comming from the crankcase. I have an engine & tranny out of an '82 300d that has only 134k miles on them. My original plan was to put the 300d engine and tranny in the 300SD but am having second thoughts.
I have been wondering if it would not be better to try to fix the engine that is now in the 300SD. With the excellent compression in #s 1,2,4 and decent compression in #5 I am thinking the engine might have been rebuilt or be a replacement being as there is 290k on the car. If I pulled the head and found the bad compression in 3 is due to cracked rings maybe I could replace the rings and end up with a good engine in the car without pulling the engine, switching the transmission parts and engine mounts and putting the 300D engine in there.
One of the reasons I have been contemplating this is that I have seen several 300d's on craigslist, want ads etc. that looked like the body and interior were in excellent shape but went pretty cheap because the engine did not run or ran poorly(saw a '77 300D that went for $500 that had reportedly 151k and owner claimed was immaculate). If I could pick up one of those and install the 300D engine in it I could end up with a nice pristine 300d for a fraction of its worth. I have a daughter that will be needing a car in about 1-1/2 years and I like the idea of her having a car that was not too fast and has a high saftey factor. I have plenty of room to work on the cars.
Any way, what would you all do in my position?