240D Vacuum Door Lock Repair

[mbehensky]

Hi, everyone...
This morning I tried to turn off my 1982 240D and nothing happened. The engine just kept happily running as if nothing had happened. After pushing the under hood "Stop" lever REALLY hard I got it to shut off. I started trying to figure out what was wrong and after reading various posts on the forum I realized that I had a vacuum leak. The give-away was that the engine would shut off fine if I locked the driver's door.

There is a 10 point Vacuum debugging post which made it easy to determine that the problem was in the right rear door vacuum element, on the unlock side. I extracted the offending part and noticed that there was a small vertical tear in the rubber boot that seals up the unlock side. I did more investigation and found I could get a new vacuum element from FastLane, but I wasn't sure it would fit. It looked a little different (maybe because it wasn't an OEM part), and I wasn't happy about paying $38 for the whole thing when I just had a small tear in the boot.

After reading another post that talked about using a balloon or prophylactic to fix these things, I found a balloon lying around the house. I used some Krazy Glue to stick the edges of the tear in the boot together, and cut a strip from the balloon. I then put some Krazy Glue on the boot and wrapped the strip of baloon around the shaft, Krazy-Gluing as I wrapped. After the glue dried, I put the element back and voila! functioning door lock. The car happily shuts off now when you turn off the key. We'll see how long it lasts..

Here's a picture of the repair..

[AMH]

The vacuum elements changed design several years ago. The image posted looks similar to the updated version. The old version had a clear sleeve with a tab that would lock around the lock rod. The new version (as shown in the image) has a black sleeve that slides down over the lock rod.

I did sell a few of the very old style vacuum elements, had two circular vacuum pods, weighed about one pound each and cost several dollars more.

Start checking the other vacuum pods, with special attention to the fuel tank pod. When one starts to leak, the others are sure to follow.

Alan

[jgroover]

Would it be possible for you to post the link that you used to diagnose the vacuum problem? I think i have a leak somewhere because it takes a couple seconds longer for the car to shut off now...

thanks

[mbehensky]

Here's a link to the 10 point vacuum debugging procedure. You can also find
it by searching for "you have a leak in the right rear door" (in quotes). The
thread title is something about Air Conditioning, so it is hard to find.

82 300TD A/C problem