Is fuel shut-off on 115 300D vacuum operated?? Hell it oughta be cable driven coupled with the gorilla knob, itself a work of art. My suggestion is quit reading *about* the car and spend more time driving it.

If ye mothball the vehicle then you'll constantly suffer "revival" syndrome wakin up semi-seized injector pump and oil sump sludge, fouled pre-comb chambers too. Even worst treatin these old classics as 2,000 mile per year "sunday" cars is you end up with 1/8" carbon deposits on piston crowns and valves.

Why dont you sell the '82 240D and treat yer 115 as well maintained daily driver instead?

And Tom is right about blue smoke bein perfectly normal unburnt fuel at startup. Hell, nobody in their right mind attempts to diagnose diesel engine based on perfomance when stone cold. Gotta laugh at lunatics cryin about lousy dead stone-cold diesel engine performance. Yer 115 naturally takes 5 minutes just to get it started, character of the beast. Arguably modern pencil plugs are just designed for those in a hurry wantin their diesels to operate more like gasoline engines.