Assistance Needed
 

I have a 1985 300D (California version). I purchased the car 1 year ago about 350 miles from my home so I had about a 7 to 8 hour drive back. the car did fine for the first couple hundred miles but later suffered extreme loss of power and slowing to a crawl.

I immediately replaced the primary and secondary fuel filters, but still experience the problem intermittently. The car is showing 200k miles and the injector pump along with the ALDA appear to have never been serviced (they still have the yellow paint spots on the adjustment nut and threads).

The car has never had the acceleration of a 300D Federal version, but seems to run fine most of the time. Today on my way to work the car completely stopped running 6 times in a 12 mile trip. I usually pull over turn the key off, let it rest for a few minutes and it will hesitantly start again, but with very erratic accelerator pedal behavior and lots of blue smoke.

Can anyone here identify this problem or have suggestions?

Thanks,

ruet66

Blue smoke indicates the burning of engine oil.

Also, was the trap ox ever replaced? It could be clogged as well. IIRC, a clgged trap ox did manage to wipe out the turbo, and allowed excessive oil burning.

Check the condition of the turbo. You may consider swapping in Federal equipment to get rid of the trap ox.

I would consider a compression test also due to the oil burning.

The trap oxidizer was my first inclination as well. I Removed the trap oxidizer, cut it at the factory welded seams, removed everything inside, cleaned it thoroughly, welded it back together and re-installed it. The performance is still inferior to a Federal version.

If anyone out there has the parts to convert it to Federal version, I would be interested in purchasing or doing some parts trading.

I was thinking fuel tank strainer, have you replaced the fuel filters again yet? Cut open the plastic one and see if theres crud inside. if the car has been sitting a year I'd bet on crud. What about water in the fuel tank? Its been real cold here lately, water or gelled fuel can be a big problem... I put a full bottle of power service diesel suppliment in both my cars this month to sequester any water in the tank, lower the gel point of the fuel and clean any crud out. My 240D has sat a long time (probably a year) and I'm paranoid...

You just made a huge expansion chamber before the turbo, performance will be worse than with a correctly functioning TrapOx.

Re: ForcedInduction
 

Thanks for your input. I suspected as much, because while the power did increase it was very little. If I had time, I would have replaced the entire trap oxidizer with tubing similar in diameter to the turbo and exhaust. But, this is my daily driver and it was a weekend project and I didn't have access to the proper material. I have been researching the possibility of exchanging the intake, exhaust and turbo with Federal parts, but after doing some research on your links, it sounds like I need to try and locate a VNT and fit it to the car. By the way, very interesting work you have done on your 240. I would ultimately like to integrate a 5 speed into my 300, tighten the suspension and tweek the fuel and turbo system for increased power. I would be interested in any further information you could offer. Feel free to email me at:
ruet66@gmail.com

Thanks,

ruet66