New to the boards.

[John-84-300D]

As my user name suggests, I've got an old Mercedes Benz 300D sedan. Yeah, the 3.0 Inline 5 TurboDiesel that has almost 230K, I drive her around every few days or so (I have other cars, I tend to swap around), but a couple thousand miles a month on her at most.

For right now, I'm on a shoe-string budget, but I've managed to give her some recent maintenance that has improved her MPG and also some repairs that have improved her driving ability.

1st, I replaced the horribly nasty air filter, both fuel filters, and the oil/oil filter. I used MAAN oil filter from the Mercedes-Benz dealer, the rest I bought new but not German. Trust me, given the choice in what was in there and what I have in there now, it was the right thing to do. I know most of you guys prefer OEM stuff, and I do to, but like I said, budget is an issue.

2nd. I repaired two vaccum lines that were rotted out a bit. This stopped the surging and lack of power I was experiancing. I also lubricated the throttle linkage and this helped a lot with the sticky throttle. In fact, that's why the old woman gave the car up, if she hit the throttle hard enough to get it to go down, the car lurched ahead. It's much smoother to take off in now, and after driving it a few thousand miles, I've learned how to manipulate the transmission into decent shifts and downshifts when I need them.

One problem that has plauged the car for years is that it will not turn off with the key. It will continue to run until it runs out of diesel (unless, of course, you press "STOP" button under the hood, which isn't convinant everytime I want to shut the engine off). Something is not right there, and I was hoping maybe you guys had an idea on what to do about it. I have checked all vaccum hoses I can find, including those that go to that maze of vaccum hoses moutned on top of the valve cover near the throttle linkage, everything seems to be OK, no leaks, no missing hoses. Is there a solenoid that is vaccum controled that I should be looking for? I'd appreciate your help on where to go next for a solution to this problem.

I have further plans for the car, including an entire overhaul of the brakes (whole system), suspension, both rear CV axles and possibly the steering system as well. There are also a lot (or one very large) oil leak(s) coming from the front of the engine. The oil cap itself seems to like to seep oil. I found recipts in the car where the valve cover was repalced, as were all of the seals in the transmission (which was slightly low when I got it).

On the plus side, it runs well, returns MPG in the mid-20s after the filters change, and the heater works great. We'll worry about the A/C system in a few months, as well as the cracked dash and so forth. It's to be a work in progress, fix a few things here and there to make and keep it reliable. It's not a daily driver, but it can be if need be. I would later like to do some updating to the front clip, give it more classy looking Euro-style head lamps, fog lamps and signal lamps to replace the old round (and yellow) ones it has now, which are in moderate to poor condition. The grille is also missing a plastic chrome strip on the bottom left corner and the emblem fell off on the ground one day (was always crooked since I got the car).

Well, I hope I havn't bored you all to death, I'll check back later for any responses. I'm new to German cars and diesels for that matter. We've had a Ford (International) 7.3L PowerStroke in the family since new, now with over 300K miles on it, but that truck has been super reliable, not much of a learning experiance if nothing ever goes wrong, besides, I'm sure this German 5cyl is totally different.