My ongoing 300TE project
 

Since my 300TE is about to undergo a major project I thought it was time to start a build thread.

In the past year plus I have owned the car I haven't really done much aside from some small improvements and routine maintenance like tires, brakes and oil changes but since the car stranded me on Thursday its time for some major work.

Here is Chad's original thread on the wagon.
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/342183-still-diesel-family-but.html

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Chad's improvements.
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First day home with me
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New radio.
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Euro Headlights
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps34e7dde1.jpg

Road trips to North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama
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Over the past two months the transmission has been acting up and on my way to work this past Thursday it finally lost all forward gears. I thought about getting a Sun Valley rebuild but i have one of these just sitting there so my 300TE is getting a 5 speed manual.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pscggxljgl.jpg

I haven't started any work on the 300TE yet but I have already removed nearly everything I will need from the parts car. I'm going to install a new clutch, pressure plate, pilot bearing, throwout bearing, master cylinder, slave cylinder, flex disks, driveshaft center bushing and rear main seal for the engine.

I'm going to update this post with part numbers for anyone else who will be following along.

Sachs Clutch Kit KF66301

If you ever have the chance or inclination, OEM 500e springs work great on wagons. Slight drop and firmer ride. H&Rs are crap by comparison.

I'm keeping the stock height on this one. My now departed 300E was lowered and I loved the way it looked but the harsh ride started to bother my back towards the end.

My clutch kit came in yesterday and I'm currently waiting on the hydraulic bits and the rear main seal to arrive.

Made some major progress over the past few days.

Got the auto out.

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Discovered the source of my driveshaft vibration :eek:

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Had an unexpected day off work today due to a water main break by my office so I put my time to good use.

I pretty much finished everything inside the car including the wiring for the reverse lights and bypassing the neutral safety switch along with all of the plumbing for the clutch. I'm pretty pleased with my progress but a bit annoyed that I'm waiting until next Monday for the order I placed from the house of autos in Arizona... As an aside the parts I ordered from Pelican came within 3 days. They are not always the cheapest but they are the quickest. Anyway on with some pictures.

Got the Flywheel back.

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Getting somewhere.

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All done inside the car.

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Another annoyance I ran into was a stripped out bolt on the exhaust downpipe to manifold connection. I had to remove the exhaust manifolds to get enough room to get in there and grind the bolt head off. Thankfully I have another set of manifolds so I decided to paint them while they were off.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pske6c3by0.jpg

Looks great. Keep it up and keep the pics and updates coming!

Only got to spend a few minutes on the car last night but I did get the rear main seal changed. The dealer had one in stock when I went to pick up my rear flex disk so I grabbed one.

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Nice to see the flywheel will only go on one way!

Looks good!

Wrap the exhaust manifold while they're off. I typically use the el cheapo stuff, but the word on the street is that DEI wrap is the cat's meow.

Got everything finished up yesterday morning and drove the car a bit in the afternoon and its like driving a totally different car. Someone mentioned that it would feel different than the 300E sedan due to the different final drive ratio and they were right. At 70 MPH the engine sits at 2200 RPM which is down from the 2500 RPM in the sedan and 3000 RPM when the wagon had the automatic. I'm hoping for a dramatic rise in MPG on the highway. The different shift points will take a bit of getting accustomed to but I'm very pleased with results. I have some pictures I need to upload but my camera cable is currently AWOL.

A job well done!
Rear main seal looks like a real pleasure compared to the OM61X

You are living my fantasy!
Bring it for Chad's GTG this summer.

Thanks! The rear main took all of 5 minutes to change out and 90% of that time was prepping the engine block surface for the new RTV sealant.


It will be there!

I drove it again this morning and it does have some other issues I need to sort out. If I disengage the clutch to shift into neutral while I'm going 35mph+ the engine will stall. Not sure what the cause of that is yet.