This is a good tip. I heard it in a number of other places when I investigated removing the useless crank sensor from my 85 Cali 300d. I may have used a few extensions with those wobble drives. Harbor Freight sells a cheap assortment that works well. I also put a u-joint in there someplace.

My intent was to recover the sensor from my 300d and use it for a test fixture for my tachometer amp project. It didn’t really work out because the cable after being heated by the engine for 35 years was as stiff as a board. I reinstalled it all and picked up the installation tricks too. The grease dab to hold the nut would have helped.

A final tip is if you have a damaged sensor, you can get one off an old gasser at the junkyard. There are a lot of 80s Mercedes cars with these sensors for diagnostic testing. SLs, 300Es, SELs and many others. I ended up buying a new pickup from a 300E. They’re cheaper on eBay because nobody I mean nobody would buy this part and maintain it on a 300E because it is purely for diagnostics. So it’s half the price of a 300D pickup. FYI PN **Beru 0191325006 0021531328. There are other PNs for the others. Mine has a 75 ohm resistance and triggers my tach amp just fine.

Just a tip in case your sensor is damaged on your diesel. You can save beer and pizza money.

**Edited to add - sorry guys I’m wrong about the Beru sensor I mentioned above. The sensor head is the same but the plug is different. It won’t fit in the diesel tachometer amp socket.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles