1987 300TD - I Just brought home the car I'll be burried in....
 

I'm still a little giddy from this, but I just brought home an 87 300TD. It was on craigslist in Winchester, VA (about a 2 hour drive from my home in Fredericksburg, VA). It shows evidence of having a cracked head (#14, oil in overflow tank, upper radiator hose puffs up immediately after starting car). But I got it for less than a grand, so I feel I can afford the cost of a new head.

The car is super, super clean, has a few minor issues that all can be addressed. It runs and drives fine (I towed it home and will not be driving it till I can replace the head). I haven't gone thru everything yet, but the short list is; no A/C, rear windows don't roll down, small rust patch on rear passenger quarter and a little on the front jack points, needs hood-liner, crazing of the front headlight lenses, car is covered with surfing-related stickers (sorry to the young man who used to care for this car, but I'm a 40+ year old geezer, I need to put my AARP sticker on there now ;-)

I used to own a non-turbo 1980 300TD, that I dearly loved. But it had zero acceleration which is dangerous on I95, so I sold her. Until yesterday I've never even sat inside a W124 - let alone drive one. MAN - does this thing rock! It's like driving a police car (slight exaggeration). Oh boy, do I ever love this car. Now I know what all the fuss is about.

I'm going to pour thru all the great articles here on the OM603 head replacement procedures, and everything else that is written about this car. I see that there are a few other Northern Virginia W124 wagon guys (I hope to get to meet you all soon). I guess now I just need to find a proper head and get to work.
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What a great find, looks like you have a great helper also. Any inside pics? I would have also been all over that at less than a grand. Good luck with the head replacement.
Mike

Sure thing. I'll take some hopefully this afternoon and get them posted. I just read the whole story about a 300td that was purchased at surplus auction in DC and has been restored to wonderful condition.

Those are my two sons, thy went along on the trip. My oldest (who is a hard to impress teen ager) was impressed by the car and the great deal we got. I'm thinking his first car is probably going to be a w123. I really know those cars well and they are über reliable.

I turned on the stereo to hear if it works, the antenna does not come up but there was a Bob Dylan cd in it, so it appears that the young man who owned it shares my love for Dylan.

Also found out that the rear hatch is lazy, won't stay open. I think I've read that this is a real pain to fix, we shall see.

You are probably in a part of the country where finding a head may be easier. Contact other wagon users that you refer to as a wagon head may prove somewhat less common. They may know where there is one. You want and need a wagon head.

Keep in mind that first it may just be a head gasket. They do fail on occasion alone on the 603s occasionally. So you might want to pull the head first to find out. How many indicated miles on the car? Looks good so far.

I don't think there is any difference in the om603 wagon and sedan heads. There was on the w123 wagons as they employed an sls pump that was mounted in the head. The w124 however uses a tandom powersteering and sls pump that is belt driven.

That's great and makes the search a lot easier.

Congratulations! I myself just recently went through the head replacement procedure on my om603...it is not terribly difficult as far as head jobs go. My problem was that I created alot of "while I'm in there" extra things for me to do. The car looks great in the pictures! It may be worth a drive to check out some of the Crazy Ray's locations throughout Maryland...they don't post their inventory online but at least the one near Laurel on Rt. 1 always seems to have quite a few Mercedes when we stop by as we're traveling through. You never know if you could find a higher number head out there. I personally bought mine off ebay.

Good luck!

Welcome to the Forum, but I don't know about being buried in that car, if they made a W210 (1999 turbodiesel) in the wagon you would be more justified in saying that :rolleyes:
Unfortunately the last diesel wagons MB made, at least for export to the US, are the '86 '87 W124 chassis.

I missed an opportunity just this week to buy an '87 wagon with a cracked head for $2000. I was the third person to contact the seller, no picture in Craigslist and I finally received an email telling me I would be offered the car if the other potential buyers reneged. I told the seller that I would gladly pay the asking price if the car was in otherwise good shape. I never heard back so I'm certain it was snapped up even at that price.

I really want to find a 124 wagon, or a 300SDL to put my '87 engine in, just another project maybe :confused: but I would like a newer wagon, my '79 has over 350K on her and although its still strong, its not as refined as the '87 then there's the pep the OM603 has, which I enjoy whenever I drive my '87 300D (see photos on my Gallery).

I've moved lots of heavy loads in the '79 with its turbo transplant it will pull an incredible load. I carried almost 1000 lbs of ceramic tile home from the tile store although at very low speed and really careful on corner. I think I wound up having to replace the hydropneumatic accumulators (aka spheres) shortly after that but it still rides perfectly level, even with a load of transformers - I've been known to move heavy iron in the MB wagon and she takes it in stride. The SLS is a real asset and I never advocate bypassing it in the event the rear shocks fail (some folks have replaced the OE SLS shocks with conventional shocks for sake of economy).
You may want to replace the radiator on general principles, my experience is if you have any sign of running hot and the radiator is not fairly new you may want to replace it to assure the cooling system is as good as it can be, to prevent another cracked or warped head.
DDH

As promised - some more photos. Also - I jset re-read my original post - yikes! I cannot spell or type. Sorry about that folks.

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The engine has evidence of lots of care and attention, oily fingerprints on the valve cover, etc. It was rigged up for a single tank WVO system, fuel line pump and heaters. I am pulling all of the heater stuff out, but will probably leave the inline fuel pressure booster.

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All of the interrior is in great shape. The car was originally purchased by a farm in Virginia (by farm I mean a nice, wealthy type of farm, not the kind that would use a MB Wagon to haul hay around in). The arm rest is loose, hopefully I can tighten that. My first 300TD had sheepskin covers, I loved those, so I'm going to install a new set in here.

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Another shot of the front view. The speedo works, but the odometer does not. Hope this is an easy fix. It reads 196K now, the previous owner estimates it is around 250k by now - they owned it for 5 years. Steering column has the adjustable option (small switch on the left hand side of the column). I haven't tried this out yet.

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Cargo area. I was suprised by the auto-close rear hatch. Going to have to replace the struts someday.

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Only missing one rear headrest. Are they all the same, can I just find one that is the correct color, or are they specific to the middle rear seat of a wagon?

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Driver side view of the car.

You can always edit any spelling etc errors
my observations:
1) no Nasty Trap Oxidizer.
2) better than average interior
3) how do you open the hood with those flamethrower lights? do they rotate? never saw such on a 124

Thank you! I have lurked on this forum for several years, but had nothing to talk about. I am doing alot of reading here. I am going to have to conduct some testing to see if the head is cracked or if it is just the gasket (to be sure I think I really have to take the head all the way off). I've just heard about Crazy Ray's, but driving to Maryland is like traveling to the moon for me. I'm going to look around my neck of the woods first, see how things go.

Thanks - I need to pay more attention to the helpful buttons here. :rolleyes:

wow - no trap oxidizer? That's great - where would it have been? I have read that they cause problems. In the maintenance book that came with the car I saw that this part had been giving the original owner problems, so they must have just taken it out.

I haven't turned on the extra lights - they remind me of the road lamps found on classic Range Rovers. They don't get in the way of the hood, also they don't seem to move. I will use them when I am alone on dark, windy Virginia back roads (usually when I am driving to a BlueGrass festival).

It's green, nice. I'd love a green 300TD

What did MB call this shade of green? I only dislike one MB color, blue (interior and exterior). This color combo seems very nice to me.

I don't know if you are hung up on OEM parts, but you can find knockoff headlight lenses quite cheaply on ebay to replace the crazed ones.

One thing to do immediately if it hasn't already been done is to get a set of new copper type bullet fuses and just replace all the bullet fuses. Again, cheap to find on ebay. I use my dremel with a ss brush wheel to burnish the new fuses and the fuse mount "fingers".

Have a good look-see and do some hammer tapping on the front strut towers where they are welded to the inner fender wall to check for soft spots/corrosion. Even tho the 124 has less of this problem than the 210, it does happen- my LF failed and up until then it looked fine.

Good luck with the car and keep us posted on your cylinder head adventure.

Rgds,
Chris W.
'95 E300D, 394K