Hello all:
I just bought my first Benz (and my first diesel) a couple of weeks ago, a '78 240d. It's great. A friend of mine followed my lead and picked up an '81 240d less than a week later. He got a better deal, he thought, until his car broke down within ten minutes after he bought it. He had it towed to my place, where it still sits.
He said it lost power and just konked out, but I wasn't there. The next day I started to fool around with it, and got it to start. It seemed to make more noise than it I thought that it should. It sounds like a very mettallic clatter, like a very loose lifter. When I started it again later in the day, it made less noise, at first, but then more after it idled for a few minutes. Often, after revving it a time or two, the noise will change in volume and violence anywhere between outright unbearable and almost inperceptible. I began to suspect something loose about the timing chain, so I took the valve cover off this morning.
Nothing looks out of place. But when I put a wrench on the cam and turn it clockwise, it is clear that the tensioner retracts, and the injection pump side of the chain goes slack. That seems to me to say that the tensioner is kaput, as I'm under the impression that it is a hydraulic thing with a spring behind it, and it's behaving as if it is only a spring. My manual hasn't arrived, so I'm just looking for a confirmation of this diagnosis.
Or any other ideas??
Thanks
Paul