My tensioner didn't line up great on my 300D either. Saw that when I changed the chain. Bruce, I am right across the river in South Covington (Taylormill/Independence area). Sady is on your side of the river and there are a few more of us in the area. If nothing else, you have some help around town.

Thats great to know there is some other members nearby. Maybe we should all get together sometime. Ill bring the biodiesel.

Heck yeah, bring the bio! I just bought an old '76 300D and I'm going to run a few tanks of the 2% they have by me, just to clean out the system. Pulled the failing fuel sending unit out to clean it (real bad) and broke the blasted nichrome wire. Won't replace the sender until the bio has cleaned the tank. Tank actually wasn't that bad, just the sender. Sady said something the other day about us holding a get together. I'll have to look it up. Maybe we can do it some place with a heated garage. More fun to crawl around our cars if it isn't freezing.

Amen to having it in a heated garage. Im building a boat that will be my future home. I usually go to the barn where Im building it everyday but with no heat and the wind blowing I wimped out today. Didnt get a damn thing done.

Bruce,

Check Harbor Freight. They have Diesel comp. testing sets on special from time to time.

Thanks Ill do that. Does it take anything special for a mb or do they come with universal fittings?

I believe most sets specify what brand of engines they will work on. Most sets I've seen work on MBs since there is a large number of MB diesels out there. I need to get a new glow plug adapter for mine, but I an almost buy a whole set for the price of the adapter from snap-on.

The HitMan recently installed an offset key in his SD. Maybe he will chime in here later.......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

and it does come with all the adapters for both old and new style glow plug openings. on sale it goes down to 13 or so dollars. My Snap on set needed a new seal, and the HF kit was WAY cheaper than a seal from snap-on... the kit worked just fine on my 300TD and it started up smooth once I upgraded to pencil type GP's. for testing compression, I removed all the injector lines, wired the stop lever up to the Master cyllinder, and placed a pair of jeans over the IP, because TONS of fuel still shoots up while cranking the motor. write down the cranking pressure on each cyllinder and make sure none of the cyllinders are more than 10% lower than the rest.
have fun!
John

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

$28 is a lottttttttttttttttttttt cheaper than what the dealer told me for a compression gauge.You wired the stop lever in the closed position? Is the procedure basically like that on a gas engine where you take your reading on the third compression ? We have a harbour freight store here and Im going to. try to pick up one of these today and hopefully my step key will arrive this morning. If Im succesfull the next step will be IP timing witch I know nothing about.

How do you eat a whale?
one bite at a time


83 300d 187k not counting
85 300td 148k
85 300d 319k (the one Im working on)
84 300d 287k great runner-using for parts
1950 GMC truck (MB diesel candidate)
1965 BMW r60/2 conversion

Bruce,

Get on the HF web site and order a catalog. Actually the stores and the catalog sales are two different sections of the HF company and often do not have the same items. The guy that runs the store here in Corpus says that he will honor any catalog prices for items he has in stock.

If Harbor Freight has someone on sale at its website but you want that price at your local store all you have to do is print off that page and take it with you... but print each item on different page because they keep it like a coupon..... I did that yesterday myself....

I just cranked until the pressure stopped rising, then read the gauge...
be carefull on the HF tester, set the thing in, where you can read the pressure without touching the gauge... if you move it much, the thing pops off and 300+ psi air and oil sprays at you. I am sure the snapon and dealer CT's are much more secure, but$$$$$ who cares.
John

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

Thanks for that tip. Now if I can get my mind wrapped around the subject of IP timing I feel Ill have a reasonable chance of making a daily driver out of her.

with the help of another forum member (sady) the timing is correctly set and what a difference that makes! It was 20 this morning and she fired right up and didnt die. Less smoke and a smooth idle too. I think the egr is clogged and Ill tackle that next.

1985 300d 319k and now counting!