I'm making space for my next project so the 1983 300SD is for sale. Photos at http://photos.yahoo.com/tabijan in the 83 300SD album. It's the beige over brown SD, in case you stumble onto another album. I got the car in late 2002 as a freebie from some family friends. A tree or branch fell on the roof causing the dent you see in the photos. No glass damage, doors and windows operate as they should, only the sunroof is inoperable. You can't tell from the inside that anything is the matter with the roof. They got a good insurance settlement to repair the damage (not total the car) so they walked away from it after I offered to repair the vacuum pump so the brakes would work again. No salvage title.

The good:

- very nice interior except for a tear in the passenger seat and lifting of the upholstery where the rear seat meets the rear deck.

- very quick starting, not much smoke, transmission feels good.

- brakes are good.

- ACC modes work for the most part.

- just about everything else works; door locks, windows, seats, etc.

The not good:

- the dent in the roof.

- needs some front end work. When it gets past 55-60mph there's a looseness shimmy, as opposed to a wheel vibration shimmy, that comes and goes. Leaning on the steering wheel such as when taking a freeway curve can make the shimmy worse. Doesn't stop me from taking it to the high side of the speedo. Relax, it has an earlier 85mph speedo. If I remember, one of the lower balljoints has a torn boot. I have a replacement balljoint but no time or tools.

- AC compressor seized.

- ACC blower starts only in DEF, or TV with the blower control set to max. Once it starts blowing you can swtich back to automatic and all is well.

- I was pressed for time to replace the vacuum pump (with a new one) where it's not legal to work on a car on the street so I didn't go a good job cleaning off the old vacuum pump gasket. Long story short, oil leaks from there.

- odometer reads about 120K miles. I got it with 108K miles. True mileage was unknown when my friends bought the car. I have absolutely no history of it but if someone wants to run a carfax...

- park brake doesn't hold the car; shoes worn.

- driver seat pad worn, but it looks great.

That's about it. $1100 takes it.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL
83 300SD

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... and the rest of it.

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