Pedal assembly...
Two pedals are better than one.
I tried installing the whole assembly with the master cylinder hardline connected..um, that didnt work too well. Better to take it off and reassemble laster. Its also probably a better idea to install the rubber feed line to the master before installing the assembly(man its cramped down there in the footwell and under the dash).
Bleeding the master and slave was pretty easy surprisingly. I disconnected the line going into the slave and bled the master first so there wouldnt be as much air to push, connected to to the slave and then bled them together. After the fluid started getting clear of bubbles I just let things gravity bleed for a while topping on the brake fluid resevoir and then closed things up. Works great.
The "control unit" (silver box about 6"x4" that does.....something?) was connected to the cast pedal assembly mount for the auto at the same area that the clutch master cylinder on the new assembly. I had to move it elsewhere as it wasnt going to fit in the same location with the new pedals. The kick panel also needs to be modified to allow for two pedals instead of one.
So thats all the fun stuff. How about the not-so-fun stuff? Glad you asked. Lets see, lets start with the pedal assembly...
The brake booster connects to the brake pedal by a clevis joint... The brake pedal from the donor 240D has a small through hole for an M6 bolt. Nice and tidy. HOWEVER the 78 300CD has a much larger hole cut for it. That hole then houses a flanged metal bushing(that also goes through the clevis), and then the m6 both goes through the whole mess. Well, that left me with half of a full set with a bushing that was going to fit the brake booster yoke of the 300CD, but wasnt going to go through the new pedals.
You can kinda see the largish hole on the auto brake pedal a bit below the brake light switch.
The fix?..well, with the hybrid setup I just needed the bushing to be on one side of the clevis. It didnt need to go through the other side or the pedal itself, so a bit of dremmeling gets me a modified bushing that fixes this mismatch.
Stock bushing on top and the clopped bushing on the bottom, I only need the section I am holding.
Next issue....Square Peg, Round hole(or alternately known as...the speedo cable mess). So, I had taken it for granted that the speedo cables were the same in all of the W123s...yes you laugh.
So as the transmission is in and pretty much everything is buttoned up and the last thing to do is install the speedo cable and....
Thats right...its not gonna fit. Manual tranny is set up for a square shank for the speedo cable and the one out of the auto is a long rectangle. Awesome.
I suppose the "solution" to this is to get the speedo cable from the donor car as well if you happen to have a car that comes with the rectangular male end on the cable....but thats not what I did. I busted out the dremmel again and started grinding away at the speedo cable(which isnt easy as it spins).
The square fitting in the transmission is made of plastic. Its width is also thicker than the speedo shafts rectangle so I couldnt just grind down the rectangle to make a square. It wouldnt fit as it would be too small(or wouldnt fit for long until it wore out a larger hole and started spinning. What I did was grind the ends of the rectangle to a 45deg point. and then inserted it on the diagonal of the square. That provided a lot more meat to hold onto and made things more secure.
Hmmm..oh yeah, the car wouldnt start. w_t_f?
Imagine this scene...Ive been up since 7AM working on the car making a push to get it done, now its midnight (I think I ate something..maybe a banana?), Ive been knocking down all the st00pid mismatches that have been popping up, the car is finally all together, I press in the clutch(I originally had the ignition wired through the clutch...10-15sec of holding the clutch before the glow plug relay energizes?....lame)..turn the key when the amber light goes out and.......nothing.
Are you kidding me?
I try again, and again, same results. Not a crank, bot a buzz, not a sputter..nothing. Its late, Im beat, its cold(low 30s is worthy of being considered "cold" esp for California), I lack nutrition and any ability to do any more brainstorming...I call it quits for the night.
Next day I recheck my wiring(and fix the silly clutch-in to energize the relay thing)its all fine as confirmed by a quick trip to the junkyards to pull some wiring harnesses. Maybe a fuse?..# 14 (think it was 14) was blown, says its for the automatic?? replaced that and a couple others that looked like they had gotten some heat to them(discolored metal, but not broken). I check the 80amp main fuse on the firewall and the outgoing lead to the glow plug cirquit is really toasty, crispy sheathing and all that. The fuse looks pretty bad as well, not broken, but some heat took its tool on a lot of the parts. I swap the lead for a new length of multi strand 10awg, clean up the terminals on the junction box and install a new main fuse and......fires right up. Hooray!!
After that it was going through the gears to make sure that the forward/reverse gears actually did something, they did(rear end made a lot of noise when the car was in the air though, I changed the diff fluid just as a precaution).
So far we have put about 15 miles on the manual and it shifts positively, smoothly and without noise. The engine sounds quite a bit different though. Maybe the engine had some of its natural noise damped by the torque converter? Combination of engine/manual noise vs engine/automatic noise? The car is definetly peppier for sure, things actually go when you want things to go, the girlfriend likes this....a lot. The clutch still needs wearing in as it was pretty much new when it was in the 240D. Strangely, even thought the release bearing was also new it make a bit of noise on idle, maybe thats how they all are? There is a bit of vibration, but its at a very low RPM, almost at stall speeds. Its more noticable in 3rd/4th, but only at about 10-15mph in those gears, which really you should never encounter anyway. At real speeds, there is no vibration and actually at cruising speeds the car has less vibrations in the steering wheel than when the auto was in place.
Final shot..
Looks nice doesnt it?(no comments about the seat covers)
Its still uncovered at the moment. I did get a shift boot from Fastlane and, no disrespect to them as the price was ok and shipping was prompt......but seriously, have you seen that thing up close? Molded rubber? It looks like crap frankly. Im going to see about getting a generic leather shift boot and whip something up for the car. It deserves better.
Some things still need to be done...
-The afformetioned shift boot, the shifter has a bit of rotational play in it at the bottom piviot point. Ill have to find a shifter thats a bit tighter in that regard.
-The car sits higher because of the weight difference between the two transmissions. I have heard some people have swapped the 240D springs, but from a couple measurements the springs seem to be of smaller diameter, that is, they are a softer rate spring. Not into that. Looking at the stock springs I am going to go in an unconventional and sometimes contraversial route...I am going to cut a coil off the stock springs(oh the horror). The bottom most coil is a "dead coil" anyway. Its already in coilbind and serves no purpose wrt spring action at that point, so thats the plan.
-Will also need to do a fluid change in a couple weeks. The transmission is filled with el-cheapo ATF just to clean it out. In a little while Ill swap that out for Redline MT90 since I have a lot of that around.
-Check to see how things are settling in over the next coming days/weeks. That should be it.
Id like to thank all of those who have contributed to this thread over the past couple weeks. I consider myself a pretty competent wrench, but this was not my car, I had a short amount of time, this is my first swap/conversion of anything of this magnitude and I did all of this without the aid of factory service manuals on a car that can be somewhat particular. I have flown without a net before, but Im usually that adventurous on my own car. This forum and its members were a help, giving solid advice and direction where needed and made things a bit more clear about where I needed to go/what to do/that it could be done. Thanks to you all.
EDIT:1am posting=spelling errors
Gavin