Got a 1985 300D turbo - Page 3 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

ykobayashi · #31 09-04-2018, 09:58 PM

Scraped the bubbling tint off the windows. Wow that was hard. I damaged some of the wires on the back window. At some point I'll revisit repairing this...but it isn't an emergency in SoCal. On some parts of the tint the wire just stuck to it and pulled up out of its little groove in the glass. Maybe I'll paint on some repair patch. Maybe I'll just put in a junkyard window. Nice and clear glass now. I can safely drive it. Photo looks the same but the glass is really clear now.

I also powerwashed my carpets. Wow was this car a pigsty. Spilled coffee drinks all over the floor. Tons of trash jammed under the seats. Owned by slobs. I actualy found $14 in loose change under the driver's seat. The car really stunk so I decided I needed to wash the carpets. Tide and Palmolive in my bubble gun. I sprayed and sprayed till the water ran clear. Yuck...to see the clouds of brown endlessly flowing out of the carpets made me want to vomit. It looks nice now. Took about an hour to power wash all the carpets. Did it on the lawn to fertilize my grass with old lattes.

My dash was missing wood and the catch on the glove box didn't work. So while I was waiting for the carpets to dry I sat down in the car and went at the glove box.

Looked like this when I bought it.

I found the center wood piece under the seat in the trash pile down there. I glued it to the dash. Then I took the glove box door apart and fixed the latch. It turned out it was just locked but the wood was loose so that got glued on too. Check it out.

While I was in the glove box I decided to pull it out. The temperature sensor hose had disintegrated like they all do. What do people use to replace it? I guess anything will do, even a rolled up piece of paper. I also found the overload protection relay with the 10A fuse on top. I'd read enough about the 85 tach to suspect there may be a problem with this thing. My tach didn't work. I lucked out. Fuse was burned. Tach works now!

ROLLGUY · #32 09-04-2018, 10:18 PM

Your car is a twin to the '84 I am selling. Both Diamond Blue with blue interior. Mine has the wheel arch chrome covers too. It looks like you have a dash cap on yours, and it looks great. I have cleaned carpets the same way, and yes, the brown yuck that comes out is gross! Don't get discouraged about all the things needed to make the car nice. The cleaning and tinkering that is done is well worth the effort. It is all pretty easy as well. It is nice to see these cars brought back to life, and enjoyed again. Keep up the good work!

ykobayashi · #33 09-07-2018, 09:54 PM

So I decided to make the entire car open with one key and here is what I did. It isn't as hard as it sounds. You just need to get the cores out of the locks. I did this on the ignition and now it was time to work on the doors. It looked like the PO replaced the door handle on the car presumably because the cylinder wore out and replaced it without rekeying it to the entire car. So the car had three keys! He only gave me two. One for the ignition, one OEM key for the trunk. So the doors were the last to go down to my will.

Door handle out. It took me awhile to figure out but it was helpful to just pull hard after the three bolts/screws securing the handle to the door were removed. The lock shaft kind of unhooks and pulls out of the handle and stays with the door. If you happen to have a working key, which I didn't, you can turn the key as you remove the door handle to disengage it from the locking mechanism in the door. I just had to pull.

This little roll pin holds the cylinder in the handle. Drive it out with a little punch. I used a tiny finishing nail.

Here are the guts.

Okay, so here is the part we are meant to do. Just pull the wafers. Notice they are at all different heights when the key is out...it is locked. When the key is in they should all be flush with the cylinder. Watch the little springs and make sure they are not lost. Just keep mixing, matching and leaving out till you get all the wafers level when the key is in the keyhole. MB uses tons of wafers. About 2x as many as a domestic car. So I didn't feel bad when I couldn't match some and dropped two. I trimmed the rest with a file to get a smooth action on the lock. This is unorthodox locksmithing but it works great. A real locksmith would have a kit and use the proper wafer heights but cutting with a file worked for me.

In theory, you can pull all the wafers and any key will open the lock. But a kid with a screwdriver can run off with your car. So don't do that. Try to use as many wafers as you can. A domestic car may use six or so wafers. I think I counted ten in the MB lock. Don't be afraid to drop a couple to get a good match.

Almost a fit. Just deck the high ones with a file.

I put it all back together and rotate the key. If it rotates you're good. If not you need to cut down the high wafers with your file. I almost had enough wafer variants to mix and match everything. Not much cutting to match required.

Some final work was putting on the rubber on the front bumper. Thanks to a thread here I used the flathead/counter sunk screw trick to reattach the retainer to the aluminum bumper. All of my hooks were cracked. Maybe one of my original photos shows the sad state of the bumper all hanging off before I started. It came out nice.

Edit - while cleaning out the car I found a receipt in all the trash. I almost balled it up and tossed it but I decided to read it over. Rebuilt tranny in 2015 about 5000 miles ago. Wow. Never mentioned by the PO. I didn't know if I should be happy or sad. I now know why it shifts firmly (has the harsh 1-2 though) and drops into R fast before I pull out of my garage. But the fact the dude was so clueless not to mention this means the car was owned by somebody who really shouldn't be owning this kind of car. As in, it is neglected and abused. Well, that's it for today.

79-240d · #34 09-07-2018, 10:20 PM

It is looking great! You're doing good work here, man.

ykobayashi · #35 09-07-2018, 10:30 PM

Thanks. I forgot to mention I fixed the window regulator on the rear passenger side. It was acting like it was missing gear teeth. I pulled it out and it was bent up like a pretzel. The teeth on the big semicircle gear were chewed up at the high window position and that’s why it would not close. I filed the teeth back in the best I could with a triangular file. Bent it back into shape on a vice with pliers and adjustable wrenches. Worked out pretty well but it makes a racket when I raise and lower it. When I find a good regulator at a yard I’ll replace it. They’re pretty pricey new.

Speaking of pricey parts I’m having a heckuva time finding the rear quarter panel trim strip. I ordered at pelican and they just sent me an email that they didn’t actually have it. Argh. Then I look around and cannot find one for less than $80 (ebay, online etc.). I’m going to head out to pick and pull tomorrow and see what I can find.

vwnate1 · #36 09-08-2018, 03:09 PM

Looking and sounding good ! .

I too learned to re key my own locks, once in a while you'll stumble across dead locks or old bent doors being tossed out, I always scavenge the locks so I have a few spares to harvest the wafers (German locks) or dogs (most others) .

Don't forget to LUBRICATE the lock cylinders with GRAPHITE .

I use a liquid graphite, the liquid carring agent makes sure every wafer etc. is fully lubricated then the liquid evaporates leaving silky smooth locks .

ImBroke · #37 09-11-2018, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ykobayashi

Then I look around and cannot find one for less than $80 (ebay, online etc.). I’m going to head out to pick and pull tomorrow and see what I can find.

I have regulators if you can't find one.

ykobayashi · #38 09-11-2018, 08:31 PM

I went to LKQ and got lots of stuff. Wiper regulator, window regulator, the rear quarter panel trim, a nice matching tex passenger seat, a first aid box, and other odds and ends.

Pelican has come through with vacuum lock elements and various seals.

Rollguy shipped over one of his beautiful pass through pipes and block off plates.

So I became an expert at straightening out window regulators on my vise. I repaired one and installed the slightly used one that still needed some bending. I greased up all the regulators. Installed lock vacuum elements in all the doors - my past experience with these things is if I replace one, the next weakest one fails a month later so I decided to bite the bullet and just get everything since the door cards are off.

While trying to get my new lock motors to work I was golf teeing the lines under the hood and found a massive vacuum leak in that monstrosity EGR control system. I started plugging stuff up and the locks work great now. All that stuff will soon be gone.

Which brings me to the next confusion state. As I was plugging and removing I decided to measure the boost pressure at the ALDL. Zip. Nada. Then I thought, ok, theres that switchover valve thing in between the manifold. So I went and measured at the banjo bold with my MityVAC (it has a pressure/vac gauge). Zip nada. Nothing. If anything, a tiny bit of vacuum.

I just hooked a fuel line up to the banjo bolt on the back of the manifold after disconnecting the white hard plastic line. Like this.

Shouldn't I be seeing a few psi of boost here? It's zero. I took off my intake hose and verified my turbo spins up when I run the engine. It free spins by hand easily. The vanes on the intake side are intact. I sprayed them a few weeks ago and they're still clean.

I'm totally confused. I looked over at my SD and noticed its turbo didn't have this thing on the front.

Is this some kind of pressure release valve for boost like a waste gate? I'm gonna do some searching on the forum. Learning time.

Perhaps it is time to pull the turbo and inspect the trap cat and work towards installing my new pass through tube.

edit - this explains lots of things. Low power. Hard shifting.

ykobayashi · #39 09-11-2018, 08:51 PM

Ok, looked up that part. The air recirculating valve. Huh. Not sure what I’m dealing with here. No boost possibilities? Clogged cat? Stuck waste gate? I’m measuring it wrong? Trashed turbo vanes?

Now that I think about it, this car didn’t have much more power than a 240d. Maybe I’m effectively driving a NA 300d.

vwnate1 · #40 09-11-2018, 10:49 PM

O.K., THANK YOU ! I have this thing too and no one seems to know what it is nor how it works, elucidate me/us please as you learn .

The wastegate is _underneath_ with a short rubber hose on it, disconnect the hose and see if the wastegate holds vaccum ~ it must else it won't work right and will bleed off *some* boost .

I now have boost, plenty of it but no waste gate function and don't want to touch this air recirculating valve until I know what it does , how and why .

ROLLGUY · #41 09-11-2018, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Ok, looked up that part. The air recirculating valve. Huh. Not sure what I’m dealing with here. No boost possibilities? Clogged cat? Stuck waste gate? I’m measuring it wrong? Trashed turbo vanes?

Now that I think about it, this car didn’t have much more power than a 240d. Maybe I’m effectively driving a NA 300d.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ykobayashi

I went to LKQ and got lots of stuff. Wiper regulator, window regulator, the rear quarter panel trim, a nice matching tex passenger seat, a first aid box, and other odds and ends.

Pelican has come through with vacuum lock elements and various seals.

Rollguy shipped over one of his beautiful pass through pipes and block off plates.

So I became an expert at straightening out window regulators on my vise. I repaired one and installed the slightly used one that still needed some bending. I greased up all the regulators. Installed lock vacuum elements in all the doors - my past experience with these things is if I replace one, the next weakest one fails a month later so I decided to bite the bullet and just get everything since the door cards are off.

While trying to get my new lock motors to work I was golf teeing the lines under the hood and found a massive vacuum leak in that monstrosity EGR control system. I started plugging stuff up and the locks work great now. All that stuff will soon be gone.

Which brings me to the next confusion state. As I was plugging and removing I decided to measure the boost pressure at the ALDL. Zip. Nada. Then I thought, ok, theres that switchover valve thing in between the manifold. So I went and measured at the banjo bold with my MityVAC (it has a pressure/vac gauge). Zip nada. Nothing. If anything, a tiny bit of vacuum.

I just hooked a fuel line up to the banjo bolt on the back of the manifold after disconnecting the white hard plastic line. Like this.

Shouldn't I be seeing a few psi of boost here? It's zero. I took off my intake hose and verified my turbo spins up when I run the engine. It free spins by hand easily. The vanes on the intake side are intact. I sprayed them a few weeks ago and they're still clean.

I'm totally confused. I looked over at my SD and noticed its turbo didn't have this thing on the front.

Is this some kind of pressure release valve for boost like a waste gate? I'm gonna do some searching on the forum. Learning time.

Perhaps it is time to pull the turbo and inspect the trap cat and work towards installing my new pass through tube.

edit - this explains lots of things. Low power. Hard shifting.

Often the banjo bolt on the rear of the manifold gets plugged with carbon. Check that first. If you rev the engine with the bolt removed, you should feel boost pressure there. If not, your ARV is open. I found a way to plug the ARV, and it effectively does the same thing as an earlier turbo without an ARV. You could go back to LKQ and grab the Federal turbo cold side housing, and remove the ARV system completely. I would suggest removing ALL of the vac plumbing that is not needed. The only vac needed is the shutoff (brown), Climate control (green), yellow (locks), and black (trans/VCV), and of course the brake booster. Everything else can go in your Benz parts bin (or the other bin). You should also plumb the boost line directly from the manifold to the ALDA. All this should bring it back to it's former (original) performance.

vwnate1 · #42 09-11-2018, 11:46 PM

Thanx Rich ;

You don't think the electric over boost valve is a good thing ? .

Can one just ;eave the vacuum hose off the air recirculation valve to disable it ? .

ROLLGUY · #43 09-12-2018, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

Thanx Rich ;

You don't think the electric over boost valve is a good thing ? .

Can one just ;eave the vacuum hose off the air recirculation valve to disable it ? .

I don't believe that these turbos will produce enough boost to need the OPV (Overboost Protection Valve). The ARV works with the vacuum transducer ("Blue Flying Saucer") to remove boost, and therefore provide smoother shifts. The entire system needs to be in perfect order for this to happen. Very rarely will you find an '84 or '85 with all that equipment working properly after 30+ years. It is my opinion that a transmission will last longer with firm shifts. The '83 and earlier trans modulator system had fewer components, and I try to make all the cars that I work on, employ the same minimal vac plumbing. With the EGR going, there is no need for any of that vac plumbing either.

vwnate1 · #44 09-12-2018, 12:31 AM

Thanx Rich ! .

My '84 has this valve but _not_ the blue saucer thing .

If I apply vacuum to this A.R.V. with the engine idling, what should happen (testing) .

My E.G.R. valve is disabled .

Yes, firm shifting slushboxes always last longer .

ykobayashi · #45 09-12-2018, 08:00 AM

Thanks Rich, that clears up a lot. I was wondering just how much vacuum monstrosity I had to keep. My 82 SD is a lot simpler.

My banjo bolt was clean. I think it had come off before given the mended hard line I found on it. I pulled a vacuum on it with my mityvac just to see if it was sludges up inside the manifold and it appeared clear. I will poke around in there with a wire to make sure the intake side is actually clear. The fact that I see a tiny amount of vacuum there (instead of boost) when I rev the engine may mean it is clear. I tested my gauge by blowing some air in it. It works well. There is just nothing coming out of that banjo bolt.

I’m thinking that my exhaust system may be so plugged up my turbo may not be spooling up. It spins at idle but perhaps it isn’t getting any significan rpm to develop boost. I really have know way of knowing how fast it is spinning.

What we are coming to is turbo removal and pass through pipe installation. Somehow I got diverted there while trying to get my vacuum locks to work. The good news is they work. Something tells me the swap is going to yield some fantastic results.

I’m going to undo the bolts on the ARV to see what makes it tick. I’ll check to see if I’m losing pressure here. Perhaps another trip to LKQ can net a new cold side housing.