Hi everybody,

I thought I 'd share the outcome of my latest adventure with dealing with engine shake at idle in my 1983 300D Turbo Diesel.

Of course, we all know the benefits of having a breach-free, non-leaking fuel system in our diesels. Any air aloud into the fuel system will make performance suffer to say the least.

This means no leaks or soft connections of any type on the input side before the lift pump AND on the pressure side after the lift pump.

Keeping hose-clamps on the rubber hoses
tight and the clear fuel lines around the secondary fuel filter leak-free has been discussed and is widely known for the most part.

Here's my discovery and I apologize if this has been discussed before:

I recently changed my return lines that run from each injector in a series and was not too happy about how tight they were.

I know that leaking return lines have a lot to do with how smoothly these engines run at idle so I decided to install small fuel injection hose clamps on each connection to make sure they didn't leak.

All I can say is- wow! What a improvement on not only idle but on throttle response and power. This car that I've owned happily for 11 years (with 363K) has never felt this way. The amount of torque this engine can have, without any other modifications, is making my neck sore.

The improvement in the power-band in each gear is simply awesome. I can now take the Santa Cruz mountains freeway with no kick-down issues due to lack of power. I don't even notice when the turbo kicks in like I did before.

I highly recommend this cheap fix for all return lines on the OM617.95x diesel engines.

I bought a bag of (20) small fuel injection hose clamps on Amazon for about $12 so it's not a risky prospect.

I'd like to know if others have done this to their return lines and what the outcome was if possible.

Just thought I'd share this tid-bit of info. This forum has help me keep this car on the road all these years! Thanks!

Have a great day!

Chris Racine