Recently we've had a few issues with cars. As you can see in my sig, family has 11 cars and 5 of them, the 96 and 06 Mercuries, the 80 300SD, Sprinter, and my 190E Sportline, are registered and are regularly driven. This has served us well as we need certain cars for certain things, sometimes needing 4 vehicles at a time. We were using the 300SD up until recently as a back up vehicle as we are trying to get a new AC system installed in it (no AC sucks in an Atlanta summer).

We had to move the 300SD into secondary daily driver position a few weeks ago when the 96 Mercury developed a misfire which we traced to the spark plug wires getting contaminated by a valve cover gasket leak. We tried replacing the gasket but it leaked even worse because we tried to get around having to remove most of the passenger side of the car to get better access to the valve cover bolts (you have to remove the passenger wheel, passenger wheel well, AC lines, accumulator, air box and evaporator in order as per the Ford FSM). So we parked that waiting to see if our mechanic could do the job but he has been too busy to be able to fit us in.

This worked out alright because usually we would only really need 3 cars any given day. Unfortunately this past week, with a combination of bad luck and getting ahead of myself on a job, we are now down to two vehicles. The Sprinter's turbo developed a terrible metallic whine which I discovered was because the oil feed tube was leaking and the engine had lost a quart of oil. Apparently that was enough to starve the main bearing in the turbo. I am working on removing the turbo today to take it to a nearby turbo rebuild shop.

The other issue was my Sportline's registration has lapsed because it needed a new catalytic converter to pass emissions. It also needed a new muffler and resonator because they had failed internally due to rust. I knew a shop that I wanted to take it to to have it done because I and my friend have had good experiences at that particular shop in the past. We decided that we were going to cut the catalytic converter out of the car so we could take it for scrap vs the muffler shop getting to keep it. We also just wanted to see how it would sound basically straight piped. We only planned to have to drive it over the the muffler shop. Unfortunately, the muffler shop decided they wanted $900 to install a system using only universal parts because it was a Mercedes (they advertise $219 installed for a dual exhaust flowmaster cat back system, my friend's sister had them install such a system on her civic for that price). My main thread on that experience can be found here: Exhaust shop woes: $900 for a custom system???

I ended up ordering $450 in parts to do it myself so I'll have a much longer lasting system than what that shop would have installed. We started to get it all together and discovered that the dual pipes coming down from the M103 didn't have enough flex to be spread far enough apart to fit on the universal dual inlet catalytic converter and that the band clamps I bought for the inlets would not fit in the exhaust tunnel. Going to have the catalytic converter welded at a different shop tomorrow.

So while the Sprinter will be down for probably a week and my dad needs a car to get my disabled sister over to his office in, we decided to revive the 240D auto parts car we bought about a year back. The doors on the W123 swing wider than a Grand Marquis so my dad can get her in and out of the 240D easier than any other car (normally we use the van to transport her in her wheelchair. Also thankfully we have 2 wheelchairs at the moment).

This 240D had been in a accident but had a low miles engine and overall good shape interior. It did not come with a bumper and the passenger taillight was busted out and another one will not fit in. The car runs well but smokes quite a bit (needs a valve adjustment done, not sure if it has ever had one done judging by the shape of the valve cover gasket). It does have AC, though not the greatest as it is on old York compressor. The one other issue with it is that the passenger seat's horsehair pads were shot and the driver's seat springs were seemingly in bad shape.

We went to work, pulling the bumper from my dad's old 240D. We then installed it and all of the studs lined up! Looks like a truck overrode the bumper.


We then did a diesel purge, changed the oil (added in some MMO for good measure), and got the rest of the required lights installed on the passenger side so it could be legally registered if needed. Looks terrible but gets the job done.



We then swapped over all of the seats from my dad's car into this car. The passenger seat was a PITA because the bolts in the rear were extremely rusted and we had to drill them out. We finally finished around 4AM, after having started at around 7PM.





We should hopefully get the Sprinter and Sportline going by the end of this week but I have final exams coming up to worry about. The 240D will be registered as a 5th vehicle and the 96 taken off until we can get the AC system evacuated so we can do all of that work.

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Current: 1975 450SEL, 83 300D, 88 Yugo GVX, 90 300D OM603 swap, 91 F150 4.6 4v swap, 93 190E Sportline LE 3.0L M104 swap, 93 190E Sportline LE Megasquirt, 03 Sprinter, 06 E500 4Matic wagon.