Congrats, hope it becomes a fun project.

sweet find. hope it works out well for you. ON the oil being black, its a diesel, it will be black 5 miles after you change it. I remember that from mine, concerned me at first.

Yep, black oil is normal, it occurs within 2-3 mins of starting the engine with fresh oil in it. :D Have fun with this project!

Hello, I need to start gathering service manuals now, I guess. What would you guys recommend? For my American cars I have always bought the factory service manuals plus a Haynes. I measure a manual for completeness if it has electrical schematics in it specific to the model concerned. That is where Haynes and its competitors fall short, but they do have practical suggestions that get around factory special tools. Is it the same for Mercedes? Thanks, Bill

For the techinical questions from here on out, here is where to go
 

You may know this already, Bill, but if you are so new here you dont, you may wish to post questions about the car, now that you have it, not here on Open Discussion, but on the Diesel Discussion section here, a very active group focused exclusively on models like yours, and other Diesels, the people over there are very friendly and helpful

They know about cars like yours to the last nut and bolt of them, and any W126 Diesel question you may have could be answered there fast.

For issues regarding general maintenance/service of the W126 chassis, even though it concerns more the gas engine, and the coupe, I would definately recommend a look at the buyer's guide in www.mbcoupes.com which incidentally I co authored with the site author back in 1998