I recently bought a 1985 300SD with 126 body, the exhaust system is mostly missing among other minor problems. I was planning to take it to the local muffler shop and have them bend up a tailpipe and install a generic turbo muffler. Unless someone with more experience has some better suggestions?

New exhaust on a 300SDL *VIDEO*

If you ignore the straight pipe parts...there are some pretty reasonable exhaust setups mentioned there. My posts specifically deal with my 300SD w126

Later

Thanks for the link, what I really want is a stock sounding (quiet) exhaust with stock (low) back pressure without paying dealer prices. Perhaps if I used a turbo muffler and a resonator? Can anyone suggest specific model or type? I'm told by the seller that he tore the old system off because it was rotten, and only the front pipe is still on there.

I would replace/find some sort of resonator and just look for a high flow generic brand 2-3 chamber muffler for the back.

My exhaust is plenty quiet (the videos make it seem loud when actually you can't hear it over the engine).

I dumped my resonators and there is just a straight pipe in there.
THe only place I notice exhaust noise is at very high RPMS but in such situations the engine overpowers the noise (atleast in the w126).
There seems to be very little backpressure as this muffler is for a big V-8.

If you have any questions, drop me a PM or email. I can take more pics for you too if you are interested....

If you're looking for a stock equivalent muffler and resonator, why don't you just buy the original part? They work well and the car is already rigged right for installation, no fabrication needed. You could probably get a used one without any signif. rust from someone parting out a benz in your area or a junkyard possibly...

I would offer you my old muffler and resonator which I will have off my car shortly replaced with a magnaflow straight through diesel, but the SD and CD take different mufflers. Don't know about resonators.

__________________
"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brillaint blaze
than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."

-Jack London 1876-1916

1983 300CDT (running WVO since 12/05)
1981 300SD (parts car)

I can buy all the parts off this site and get them in a week or 2 then have them installed for a total cost around $2000. Or I can go to the local muffler shop and have them bend some pipes and install a generic turbo muffler and resonator for $300. I would prefer to save the $1700 and the time. I was wondering if anyone else had done this and if there was any particular type of muffler that works well.

I don't know if I would install a generic turbo muffler. A better idea would be to find a universal REMUS muffler off of Ebay ($300). Then go to a custom muffler store and get 2.5" or 3.0" pipe ($175) bent to fit your car. You car will sound awesome and you'll have a good exhaust system. Keep the stock resonator in the setup if you still have it. My two pennies.

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Ed
-1984 Mercedes 190D 2.2 5-speed gray market(bought@30,000 miles) (Sold back to original owner@170,000 miles)
-1999 Mercedes E300DT (245,000 miles)
-1999 Mercedes S500 Grand Edition (80,000 miles)

Front muffler $345.27 rear muffler $151.59 exhaust pipe $150.36 other exhaust pipe $170.52 plus hangers, fittings, and shipping. Then I have to pay someone to put it on.

It may not come to $2000 but it would sure be over $1000.

The original system on my 300SD lasted 19 years. (That is pretty good don't you think?) At the time I didn't know about Phil at Fastlane or I would have bought a Stock system. Performance has about the same prices as Phil But they gave me some kind if razamatazz about how exhaust pipes couldn't be shipped by UPS and that shipping and handling would be a couple of hundred bucks.
My experience with muffler shops is that you have to go back every 2 years because they use thin pipe that they can bend easily. They give you a lifetime warranty on the muffler which rots out in about 2 years and when you go back to get your free muffler system you find out that the the muffler is free but the pipes (which are also bad) and the labor to install them is extra. After the second trip back you always wish you would have done it right.

Vowing never to get caught in the Midas trap again I bought a complete Timevalve stainless steel system for $700 shipping and all. That was for headpipe, front and rear mufflers, hangers, gaskets and UPS shipping. http://www.timevalve.com/cat/us/p15b.html

It took about an hour to install in my garage.

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Tom Hughes
St. Louis
84 300SD
92 300D
86 300SDL

I used to work in a muffler shop so I know about the thin pipe trick. We never used it. We used the heavy pipe and good mufflers. The cost is about $10 or $20 per car more - our customers didn't mind, their exhaust systems lasted 2 or 3 times as long. If you really want them to last, paint the pipes and muffler with 2 coats of hi temp paint before installing and you will double the life again. I use brush on silver stove pipe paint from the hardware store. On my pickup truck the pipes looked like new with no rust after 8 years. Then I sold it.

So I'm looking at a life of about 10 years for the cheap setup the way I do it. I really don't expect a 20 year old car with 322,000 KM on it to last longer than that.

I would love to have a 3" mandrel bent system with a low restriction muffler on both my cars......to allow it to spool up faster...but thats a pipe dream......no shops near me can do mandrel bending...adn besides my systems are in great shape.

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Where are you, Ganaraska? Is your speedo a Euro (KM) or are you not in America? My 123's all have over 322,000 KM = 200,000 miles (see below)

I don't put a lot of miles on them because we rotate cars to some extent but I plan on them lasting a long time more.

I don't think painting the muffler will extend the life that much, most of the corrosion I have seen in mufflers comes from inside. The reason is that vapors condense in the confined space and unless you drive the car a lot and heat the muffler up the acid and water that condensed will eat the metal from the seams especially. If anything, wrapping a muffler in heat tape will help increase its temperature and maybe that will extend life I don't know, but racers use it to drop the temperatures around the down pipe and manifold. It looks basically like fiberglass tape with an aluminum backing.

I checked and find I can buy the two '85 300SD mufflers for $415 (shipping included). It's hard to imagine how a shop would add more than $50 to install them so less that $500 for sure.
I had a shop custom form and weld a pipe between the cat and the rear muffler (not a MB diesel obviously) for $75 and I supplied the CAT ($90) compared to another shop that wanted $350 for the same thing.

Everyone should know you have to avoid the big franchise shops like Midas if you want to get the job done right and at lowest cost, but they are still in business, serving suckers. They sold a friend of mine a battery for his Dodge that wound up costing him a bundle when it exploded and the alternator blew out his ham radio and all the lights started burning out because it went to 20 something volts!

Say, this thread reminds me that I need a center muffler for the 300TD, I am going to look for a "dual chamber performance" muffler soon. Any suggestions?

1971 220 (gas) 4-spd manual 106441
1979 300TD w/ ’85 turbo engine 296650
1983 300D 243280
1985 300TD 223470
1987 300D 262300

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'95 E320 Wagon my favorite road car. '99 E300D wolf in sheeps body, '87 300D Sportline suspension, '79 300TD w/ 617.952 engine at 367,750 and counting!

Years ago I worked in a good muffler shop that made up pipes out of good heavy tubing. The owner is a friend and will give me a good deal on making up a new system.

Exhaust pipes are usually not painted. They get rusty in a few weeks and rust through after a few years. I tried painting mine with hi temp paint and it exceeded my expectations - no rust at all after years of hard wear, year round in all weathers.

I seldom drive less than 5 miles at a time as I live in the country, consequently my exhausts last a long time as they are always well warmed up and dried out and don't rust out from the inside. The paint protects the outside. 10 years for the life of a cheap exhaust system is actually a very conservative estimate for me.

The reason for the kilometer speedo is that I live in Canada and we have been on the metric system here since the early 70's. This is also the reason I don't like to order things from the US if I can help it, I have to pay a premium of about 25% on the price because of the low Canadian dollar, and I have to pay a hefty customs brokerage fee on everything that comes across the border. Whatever you pay for stuff, I just double it and that's what it costs me by the time it gets here.

If I had the parts I could easily install them myself. I have installed hundreds of exhaust systems and made up the pipes too. But it is easier to take it to my friend's shop and let him do it.

The factory system has 2 pipes, 2 mufflers plus gaskets hangers etc. One muffler costs over $300.

I can have a whole system installed for $300. That's for a single exhaust with muffler and resonator. For all practical purposes it will work as well as the factory system and last the life of the car. I just wondered if there were any special points about a Mercedes turbo diesel I didn't know. It seems there aren't as people have installed everything from stainless steel to home made to a plain pipe with no muffler at all, and all claim to work successfully.

Incidentally the turbo itself acts as a muffler to quiet the exhaust. And any back pressure will reduce the performance of a turbo more than it will a conventional engine. That's why turbo cars typically have oversize exhausts with straight through mufflers from the factory. You can run a straight pipe with no muffler on a turbo if you don't mind a hot rod style growl. Or just a straight through turbo muffler for a slight snore.

The well known "Turbo" muffler that was all the rage on hot rod Chevies in the 70s originated as the factory original muffler on the 1962 up turbocharged Corvair. It was a 2.7 litre aair cooled flat six with a turbo - ten years before Porsche.

I'd go with OEM parts if possible, just think, you won't have to touch the exhaust system for another 20 years. The exhaust system I had on my 300CD was all original from 1979, and had never been touched in it's whole life and was in perfect working order.

Hey, that's funny! "...pipe dream..." Was that intentional?

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Matt
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1995 E300 Diesel (Die Blau Frau)