Add one to the saved list of 300D's
 

Bout a month ago I was going thru CL and spotted an interesting 300D ad so I called after checking and finding it to be about 240 miles away.

The ad was pretty brief so the owner and I spent about 10 minutes on the phone going over things. Turns out he bought it in late 2000 with the intent of making it factory pretty but never did must on it. So it had been sitting mostly for about 11 years. Sounded good enough I sent him a deposit while we were on the phone thru paypal. As you can imagine it was cheeep and as its turning out well worth it.

A buddy and I drove there with a car dolly. Truly an 'out in the boonies' car and we finally got to the place right about dusk. A quick look confirmed everything he had said about the car ... and then the fun began.

His house was pretty close to the top of a 1/3 of a mile very steep grade dirt road. Have I mentioned the area had a lot of rain in the previous week? As in A LOT !

The car was in a nicely covered car sized patio cover type structure that was down in the yard about 15 yards. Did I mention anything about rain yet ? The 300D wasnt running so we strung out chain and hooked it up to my buddys dualy pickup. Actually got the 300D to move about 6 feet before the dually sank and sank good.

Most thankfully the PO had a neighbor with a yard tractor and he came up, got the dually back on semi hard dirt and also pulled the 300D up to the flat. By now of course all the hook up work is being done by flashlight but the dolly added no new problems.

Away we went on what turned out to be about 12 yr old tires N on I75 to I24 W. After all we had been thru we had no real problems on the trip back.

In the day light gave the car a much more through look see and realized I had apparently gotten a sleeper barn find. The top and sides and bottom of the engine showed what might by typical dirt for a car with ~30K. Using a bucket of diesel with a very tired briefly jumped battery got her running and with no adjusting ran pretty smooth for one that had been at rest so long.

No useable garage so when it warmed up the following week, he came over with a pressure washer and did the car. Pics on that to follow.

Arrived here with 202K showing and from what I have seen so far it will see 505K while I own her. The doors are still tied shut from the trip home as we wanted no suprises.

More will be done this week as our weather is gonna be great.

Nice find! Wish I would find one like yours. Is that black in color?

Yes she is black.

interior looks super clean! Good score by you!
 

How come the temp gauge is metric but the speedo is in MPH? Are the turbo models all like that? My 1978 om617 has the engine coolant temp gauge in farenheit.

Wow what a find - how's the body for rust?

Looks very nice! Black is an unusual color. It is hard to keep clean but looks great if clean and waxed. the parchment interior looks nice too when clean but gets dirty easily. I had that on my first 300dt which was manganese brown.

As far as I can recall, all my temp gages were/are Celsius, even my 240.

I've seen pics of your set up tho.

Best I can figure is the early W123 cars used Fahrenheit and PSI and the later ones used Celsius and bar for the oil pressure. No idea why it was changed.

It was sure nice to see the oil pressure max out while just cranking her over too.

I havent found any rust but with this being a Southern car I dont expect any. Worst so far was all the pine needles.

Almost ran out of day light before I got my camera out.

The power washer did a pretty good job on the motor considering its probably the 1st time since 1982 any attempt was made to get it back to bare metal.

More to follow.

The rims are beauties, more of them with direct sun later.

I think 1980 was the first of the Metric gauges, from what I have gathered looking at the cars in the Junk yards. I know 79 240D is farenheit and my 80 240 is metric.

Charlie

They can be a pain - but I prefer them to rust - if it has to be one or the other

Those wheels look almost new - this really is turning out to be a fantastic find.

Thankfully still no rust found just a few moist spots. The door seals seem to leak a bit as does the sunroof.

As you see the rims have really perked up after just one pressure wash.

Seems like just about any place that can has collected dirt like the light frames.

My 78 240 had metric oil pressure and temp. But it was one that was bought by a US citizen and picked up in Germany. I also don't have AC.

I had a 77 300D with parchment interior, it was a pain to get clean, never did really get it clean

Getting a few more things done. Pulled about a 1/2 pound of pine needles ect out of the hood hinge area.

Pic 1 What does the hose drain ?
Pic 2 Its a good start.
Pic 3 Full set of new fuses. Removes any doubt of bad fuses.