My 190D was my first car. I paid too much for it then proceeded to sink an insane amount of money into it before buying a 190E Sportline, then another 190E Sportline. I redid almost everything. New cooling system, rebuilt transmission, rebuilt suspension, glow plugs, filters, hoses, bigger brakes, rebuilt injectors (by Greazzer).

The main reason it went off the road was it was in poor cosmetic shape and it had a lot of rust. I was trying to impress the girls so having something that looks so bad wasn't an option. I tried selling it earlier in the year with no luck. I even got the AC working before selling it (was never able to get it to work before, turned out to be the climate control head unit was the culprit even though I had replaced it with a rebuilt unit) but now I am almost done with my 190E Sportline project (5-speed plus 3.0L M103 with EFI) and decided I want something more fuel efficient and an automatic for the days I don't want to drive a manual through hilly Atlanta.

I decided the other day while priming a few engine bay bits for painting in my 190E that I would pull the valve cover off the 190D (something I had never done) to see how much work the engine would need to get the car back on the road. At 320K miles, the valvetrain is spotless and the timing chain is nice and tight. The engine never did leak or burn much oil (level didn't move much between changes) but it needs valve stem seals which I'll go ahead and replace with the lifters and it seeps a tiny amount at the head gasket which I'll just monitor. Did a compression test the following day and got

1- 360psi
2- 320psi
3- 320psi
4- 340psi
5- 340psi

I know that the prechamber lock rings are loose on cylinders 2 and 3 causing a compression leak but even then the numbers are pretty decent. I need to find the proper tool to torque them back down. The engine had been running pretty crappily but now it's running fairly well and the only smoke I'm getting is from the valve stem leaks. I'm also going to go ahead and replace the fan and fan clutch, don't want to overheat in traffic.

So I'm looking at an afternoon and ~$500 to get the thing back on the road (parts and Euro headlights) plus whatever tires are. It should be a reliable beater.

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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.