Potential 300D parts car for my 300SD?
 

Hi there, gentlemen. I really appreciate y'all. I've come here a lot as an unregistered guest to learn about this new experience for me of owning a W126 and the car's running great because of that. I wonder if you might be able to help me further by giving me some advice about the possibility of getting a 300D as a parts car.

So I was walking into Costco about a week ago with my five-year-old son when a man asked me what year/model MB I was driving. To make a short story long, he said he had a 300D that he had intended to make a biodiesel project out of but had never gotten around to it. His wife is tired of looking at it so he's letting it go for, what seems to me (a MB and diesel rookie), a good price.

Here's the skinny on the car:

1. It's an '83 300D with 250k miles on the odometer, which he's letting go for $600.
2. It's sat uncovered for about two and a half years, but the sucker started right up when he put a battery in it, although I'm sure y'all aren't surprised by that. I forgot to pull the dipstick to check the oil's consistency.
3. He drove it around his yard today, I'm sad to say, with no tranny fluid in it.
4. The turbo hasn't had the breather hose on it for probably this entire time, and he idled it today for a good while without it.
5. Thin smoke/vapor steadily comes out of the valve cover breather, which had only the small elbow attached.
6. There hasn't been brake fluid in the system for a few years.
7. There's some rust developing in the floor.
8. There are squirrel fixins on the front passenger floor - some acorn scraps. I'm pretty sure he's had the car stored with the windows closed, though.
9. There was some dry-rotted foam on top of the injector pump. I don't have that on my car so I don't know what that is.
10. There was fuel around the injectors, of course, but no squirts.

I can't remember what else I made note of. So, the question is, how useful would this car be as a parts car for the 300SD? If I wasn't in school I'd be more interested in fixing it up, but I don't think I can devote that kind of time or money to it for at least two or three more years, unless maybe you say that it's not too involved/expensive. What can I do with this thing? Is it a profitable investment?

I'll post a pic in the morning. It's not bad to look at if you ignore the dirt.

Thanks, fellas.
Caleb

Well, I don't know... what does your car need? The W123 300D Turbo parts interchangeable with W126 300Sd parts that I can think of are:

Front seats
Engine
Transmission
Differential
Lower Trailing Arms
Rear Shocks -- maybe?
Radiator
Oil Cooler
Coolant overflow tank
Engine Accessories
Brake Booster
Wheels/Tires
Radio
Some Automatic Climate Control Parts
Motor Mounts
Cruise Control Actuator (and maybe some other cruise control bits)
Steering Wheel

If that sounds OK with you and you're OK with the fact that, except for the front seats, no interior parts will exchange, no suspension parts except for the lower rear trailing arms and rear shocks will fit, and no body parts will exchange, then go ahead. It really depends on what parts you're after. If you just want to stockpile parts for the 'SD, then I would look for a W126, then I would get a W126 parts car.

Also, I would really want him to drop down to $500 (at least), since the transmission may be shot at this point.

The thing is that I wasn't really looking for anything. The idea of having my own portable Pull-A-Part intrigued me, though. Our car seems like it's running well, although I was wishing that I could rebuild the turbocharger so I could learn about it and as preventive maintenance. I hesitate, though, because that would take our only car out of service.

We're having to move into campus housing as we move to Ohio in about a week, so my biggest concern is that they might not like a parts car sitting in the lot. If so, are there $600 in parts I could take off the car in a pinch? The apartments have only 32 ft^2(!) of storage, so I couldn't keep the engine, which would be a shame. In fact, I wouldn't want to risk storing anything that might drip oil.

*Sigh* The more I think about it, the more this car seems like a donor for an OM617 swap into my dad's Jeep.

I'm still working on uploading a pic. I'm on a slooooow connection, and I can't take the time right now.

The engine is the item that would make parting this car profitable. If you can't take the engine, (or sell it to your dad :D), and still want to make a profit, I would pass. Sorry... :(.

The front seats have different part numbers.
The engines have different connectors for some instruments.
Different transmission numbers, but should bolt up.
Some of the diffs are interchangeable, see attachment.
Different brake boosters.

That's all I looked up.

Depends on how much you want to remove and store for future sale or use.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Front seats are still swappable. The difference is that W126 seats are power whereas W123 seats are manual... I am swapping W123 seats into my W126 because the old power seats were moody. They swap fine.

The only differences between the two engines are the oil filter housing (the W126 has an electric oil pressure gauge where the W123 has a manual one), and the engine mount arms.

The trannies have different part #s because the W123 uses a mechanical speedo whereas the W126 has an electric one. The speedometer drive/feed is located in the tail end of the transmission. The tail from a W126 transmission (722.303) can be swapped onto a W123 transmission (722.315), but a W123 transmission tail cannot be swapped onto a W126 transmission because the mechanical speedometer in the W123 requires a little oil feed line coming from the main body of the transmission that the W126 does not have.

The 3.07 is interchangeable because it is a 1.1 L casing... other casings, such as the 2.47 and 2.24, are not swappable because they are 1.3 L casings. Also, all W126 differentials made after 1985 are not swappable.

Brake boosters are different, but swappable. The W123 booster is a bit smaller, so I don't know how that affects things.