PsFred: Good to “see” you again! I’m laughing… “don’t get too excited” I guess that I’m sensing a bit of deja-vu with this situation – perhaps you may recall that when I bought my ’84 300D I had the same overheating symptoms & it ended up being a cracked cylinder head (yes, on a 617!)

I failed to check the visco clutch on my test drive (I didn’t even check the fuse – duh!) but I’ll dig into it when I pick up the car on Monday. I’m glad to see your reference to similar temperatures with your 603; perhaps the 124 chassis diesels just tend to run a bit hotter than the 123 chassis.

Joe P: So far there is no evidence of leakage. I’m going to run down all the items that you mentioned right after I go get the car on Monday. The fans should have been on due to two triggers; both the coolant temperature & the AC receiver/dryer temperature switch. Some of the later systems are new to me, such as the auxiliary fans using a resistor – I’m assuming that the speed is variable, controlled by the resistor?? I’m used to the old binary system – On or Off via a simple switch & relay.

I just ordered the service CD’s, so it’s “off to the races”…

Glenn