Hi folks,
I've been reading this list quite avidly for a month or so now, since I've aquired my first Benz and my first diesel. Some of my questions will be a little newbie, but I wasn't able to answer them myself using the search feature.

This car has been somewhat of a PITA for me. In 1991 the drivers front rotor cracked, and the owner put it on blocks in his garage till I bought it (for $600, woo hoo!) a couple months ago. I put on a new rotor and also the caliper. And it needed a new battery, so I bought the Diehard.

The car has 288k on it, but 20k before he stored it, it got a dealer installed rebuilt engine. The car is exceptionally clean for the mileage and pretty much everything works, but since it's been stored for so long I'm having to fix everything all at once.

Interestingly, I went round and round with various friends about how to start the car after sitting so long. Some said pull the injectors and crank it, then change the oil. Some said drain the tank and start it on kerosine. Yeesh, everyone had an opinion. Since I had to get it out of the guy's driveway in a timely manner, I checked the fluids and they seemed okay, so I changed the oil but not the filter. I figured that it would never start on 13 year old fuel, so I decided to crank it without glowing it to try to get some oil pressure up. The car started after literally three seconds of cranking, the oil pressure came right up, and I drove it home that day!

Since then, I've changed all the filters, will be doing the valves soon, bought a starter, replaced the voltage regulator, was able to bypass the dash light dimmer switch, replaced some leaky injector return lines, and spent a lot of time trying to get the mold to stop growing in the interior. So I'm down to a lot of small stupid problems. Here's my questions:

Where do I get the silly little bulbs that go behind the heat control knobs?

The car has a vacuume issue, and I'm pretty sure it's related to the door locks. Is there any reason why I SHOULDN'T just bypass the entire door locking system and be done with it? Does anyone find this feature as pointless as I do?

One injector is knocking pretty badly. Sounds like midgets with tack hammers inside my engine. Goes away once the engine is warm, so I figure it's the injector itself. Can I replace these singly, or should I do all 4 at once?

The first week I had the car, the aux engine fan worked, now it doesn't. Maybe I just can't get it hot enough, but what exactly tells this fan to turn on? I tried firing up the A/C but the fan still didn't come on.

Being my first Benz, I've been a little daunted by this thing. It's a great car, but it's a real learning curve. I've mostly owned 60s and 70s Chryslers, and 60s thru 90s Chevy vans. The Benz is very different. Aside from metric bolts and a fascination with allen bolts, the engineering is just different. It took me 4 hours to get the old starter out, and 15 minutes to put the new one in. That's backwards to what I'm used to. But it's been fun. I suspect these cars really PUNISH those who slack off on the maintenance, and I get the feeling they really like preventative maint. On the other hand, no spark plugs to gap!

Kip Amore

77 240D
93 White Chevy van
66 CruisAire motor home
88 VW Golf