Not so good results from 4spd swap
 

It seems that everything that could go wrong went wrong. I had a lot of headachss. One of the biggest was that the driveline was too long. I had mine made to the same length as Gavin in his CD which was a 1/4" shorter than the length posted by Rleo. Anyway, I got it in but I had to move the engine forward to get the centering bushing on its spindle then move the engine back. This was about 1/2" So the driveshaft "fits" but not very well.

The main problem is... You got it vibration. I was a little afraid of what I might find when I did this swap. The main thing that had me worried, it that fact that I DID NOT index the auto flywheel when I rebuilt the engine two years ago due to my retarded nature :o Though the engine seemed to run fine without any noticeable vibration with the auto, I'm beginning to wonder if that had anything to do with the incurable hot idle shake? But, I digress. The point is I did not have a reference for the new flywheel, So I just put it on the way I had indexed the auto flywheel with the drilled out portions in the same locations.

So I drove the beast home from my buddies garage last night. Everything works great, but I've got a bad vibration at about 1600 rpm most noticeable in 4th though It will do in in the driveway if I can hold the rpm at about 1600.

This all leads me to my question: Anyone know how to use an accelerometer and an optical pickup to dynamically balance a flywheel. I can get an accelerometer for ~$30 on fleabay, and I can get Labview on my laptop easy enough, but what to use for an optical pickup for indexing the flywheel I don't know. Also I'm not real sure how to actually balance it. Would I measure the phase angle between the peak acceleration and the index from the flywheel and drill out the flywheel at the same angle physically?

Lets pool our brains and solve this problem for everyone attempting this swap

bajaman

Is the vibration present around 1600 RPM regardless of the speed? If so, I'd guess the longer shaft is putting a bind on the mounts and causing the transmission of more engine vibes to the chassis.

did you have the drive shaft balanced as a whole?

AFAIK everybody who has done the swap has some vibration around that rpm range. The 300Ds that came with manuals in had some sort of extra disk between the flex disk and the transmission that may have been used to eliminate this vibration.

There are pictures somewhere on the forum of those extra large balancing discs attached to a driveshaft.

I believe they did came on Euro, manual, 300Ds. A friend had one one which was discarded when he went to a 5 spd box. I have never seen one on a 240D, Euro.

I just got one of those this weekend. And for future reference, the 300D 4-speed manual driveshaft length from tip to tip is 22-1/4 inches for the short shaft and 46" tip to tip for the long shaft (including the u-joint).

My 240D had one of those balancers. The rubber was coming apart, so I took it off. No driveline vibration with or without it.

Interesting, I wonder why they put them on Euros:confused: The US got oil coolers but no "DF damper":rolleyes: Thats OK, I can do w/o either.

You need this
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...mission008.jpg

But I am doing fine without one on my 82 300cd with 240d four speed conversion. There is a slight five cylinder wobble at certain speeds but nothing to get excited about.

I have one of those dampers on my 240/300 na I believe. It is probably a bit smoother, having a proper 300d flywheel.

Tom W

It has a part number, I wonder how much it would cost and how easy it would be to get one?

My car has one of those and its a stock auto.....was it an added feature on the W126's? I don't think our 300d has one....

Lots of good info here. I know that my driveshaft is not responsible for the bulk of the vibration as I get it in the driveway just sitting there if I rev the engine to 1600 rpm. I believe this somehow gets amplified in 4th, perhaps it resonates through the drivetrain. Anyhow, I took the flywheel off and took it and the flexplate to the machine shop to have it match balanced. I guess I will try it 12 different times if I have to in order to find the proper index.

How does that dampener attach?