Hey all,
I’m excited to have found this site. I’ve spent a few hours reading and have already learned a lot, but I’m also getting frustrated with my 6 month old purchase. I bought a 1990 300D, 2.5 Turbo w124 chassis, and I need some of the folks with this car to remind me that these cars aren’t a POS, and that with the right diligence I’ll be able to over come all of my issues and love the car you guys do. The car had 140k miles on her when I bought her and she is now up to 156k miles.



In that time, I have:

• Flushed and replaced coolant, and thermostat; but she still gets hot, right up to the overheat line going up long freeway hills.
• Had the lower ball joint on the passenger side fail (literally crack in two), replaced it, as well as the shock, sway bar bushings, and tie rods; but I still get a creaking croak and an occasional groan when I steer a big arc from left to right
• Fuel leaks all over the place - replaced the o-rings going from timing pump to injector hard lines, and that fixed the biggest fuel leaks, but the timing pump is still leaking and weeping fuel from multiple places. Just last night on my way back home from a 250 mile round trip, my #3 injector hard line failed right at the injector nut, the hard line fractured straight across. GRRR
• Car was running rough, so to try to tune it up. I ran 2 cans of diesel purge, replaced the injectors, and both fuel filters; and now she runs worse especially at idle, and she feels like she is missing every 20th revolution or so. I was hoping that installing new Bosch injectors would also quiet up the idle a bit, but there is no noticeable difference, and the car still nails and pings, loud as ever.
• I've also been chasing an oil leak that I now believe is transmission fluid. This last saturday I replaced the fluid and filter in the tranny as well as the soft cooler lines that run up to the radiator, we’ll see over the next week how that works.
• I’ve drained and replaced the fluid and filter on the tranny before, but still experience hard and late shifts. I did just find a good thread on this forum that talks about checking the vacuum system, so I’m looking to buy a Mighty Vac tool and see if I can trouble shoot this issue.

More back story, I bought a 1999 F250 power stroke 7.3L diesel with 215k miles on her, with a 6 speed manual and it is the BOMB. She gets a combined MPG of 19.7 when she isn’t pulling anything. All I have had to do to truck is change the oil, and the air filter and she hasn’t given me ONE lick of trouble for 40k miles.

After my love of the truck was solidified, I sold my wife on the merits of becoming an all diesel family and we found a nice looking, old lady style 300D, but I’m tired chasing my tail, spending money on parts, and lots of time trying to research fixing the true root problem, and when you aren't successful in fixing the problem after spending a whole weekend and a couple hundred bucks in parts, I'm getting pissed! I have lots of gas repair time, and feel very competent fixing my own cars, but I can’t seem to lick my squawk list on this 300D. I beleive a lot of it is just not knowing all the ins and outs of diesels.

I bought the Mercedes repair shop CDs on ebay, and they suck too. I spend all my time trying to keep the software from crashing, and when I actually do get the software to go where I want it to, I spend a TON of time trying to navigate the directory of topics and search results. I’m not impressed and wish I could find a simple old sckool manual.

So, those who love and know this car, give me a shout out, tell me that with this forums new help, I’ll be able to resolve all my issues and once I get through fixing all the issues from a previously neglectful owner, she will make me happy (and more importantly the misses!)

I’ve participated on a great Forum when I owned a Ford Explorer before I bought the F250 and loved the camaraderie and help that the forum offered and I’m hoping that this forum is similar. It looks like there are some passionate and knowledgeable folks on here and I hope I can contribute.

One last thing, on any of the above issues, I can start a new thread for each one of these questions, but if there are already good healthy threads with these good explanations of the fixes already going, please link them in your responses! I have spent a couple of hours using the search feature, but I keep getting distracted by threads that are often close to what I’m looking for, but not quite. I’ve uploaded a bunch of pics showing some of the car and repairs.

First hopeful mod if I don’t get burned out on the trying to make the car run normal will be to swap out the waste gate vacuum version for the GSXR thread version, that looks and sounds SWEET. Check out the picture below, when I had my intake manifold off, I thought the Turbo was fried because of all the oil in the intake!