Newbie intro and question
 

Hello to all,

I've been reading here for some time and am really impressed with the wealth of experience among you all. I'm new to Mercedes as well as diesel but very anxious to learn. I've been looking at 300's for a while now but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Tomorrow I'm going to a nearby town to look at an 82 300SD with 227k miles. The owner is not it's first. He has 5 yrs of service records including timing chain replacement, valve adjustments etc. He states that all the electrics in the car work, but the tachometer is "intermittent" and won't register over about 2500 rpm. He says he hasn't looked into it as he doesn't depend on it. Speedo apparently works fine. This concerns me a bit as having no diesel experience I'd like to have the tach working for "educational purposes". My son, a new driver, will also be using the car and I'd like him to get used to using a tach also. Any suggestions on what this might be? Thanks and I look forward to more discussions here.

Do a search on cigarette butt.

Sixto
87 300D

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/tech-help/247338-tachometer-link-threads.html

Sixto
87 300D

If the cigarette butt doesn't work, contact Techguy512 for the final solution.

Yeah, the cig butt may work for a while, but follow the advice in the above post.

Thanks! Looks like an interesting problem.

After some time, I've gotten used to a wacky tachometer. Like many things on the car, they work for a while, stop working, then will work again with no clear explanation. That's what gives the car character. :-) Actually I replaced the tach unit once after that I didn't bother because after all it's an automatic.