Hello Gents,

I've been silently reading the posts for quite some time, and now I need your help.

After six months of blissful driving of my '75 240D, I convinced my girlfriend to purchase her own diesel Benz, an '82 300SD. She had only been driving it for two months prior to the fateful day.This was her initial description of the problem:

Car stalled at 70 mph. No odd noises. Coasted to shoulder and tried to restart car. No result, although car cranked. Temp gauge normal (she thinks). Didn't look at oil pressure gauge.

When I got there, the entire driver's side of the car was coated in oil, as were the wheels, undercarriage, driver's side of engine compartment, you get the idea. The return line from the oil cooler was leaking at the junction of the nut and metal neck.

Towed the car back. Engine turns over easily by hand with a breaker bar and socket over the balancer nut. Pulled cam cover. No visible damage, valvetrain not dry. I put a new load of oil in (with a pan to catch the frest spillage from the line) and tried cranking, and it will crank, no unusual sounds, a lot of grey/black smoke out the tailpipe (similar to the cold starting problem I was having prior to adjusting the valve lash), but no starting.

What's the next step? Compression test? I'm guessing I could easily have cracked rings or scored walls from the oil starvation. Is it even worth pursuing it any farther? Does the car have a low oil pressure shutoff switch, and is it possible there was no serious damage?

Any advice would be appreciated, and would be beneficial for my relationship, too.

Thanks.