Howdy all,
So this is a fresh new thread for what has become the ultimate (hopefully) phase of ending up with a well working and fully enjoyable 1985 300D.

First up, here are the two vehicles, #1 and #2..




For the past yaer or so i've been sorting through Car #1 and it's issues. There are some threads on it.

I just picked up Car #2 two days ago, with the plan to pull varoius aspects of pieces (and work) from Car #1 onto Car#2.

#2 has a good transmission, which was more or less the final hurdle for Car #1 but i came across Car #2 for sale for less than i would have paid just for the transmission job and also was able to acquire a multitude of other major perks along with it. Including fully usable/restorable panels, a Plant Drive biodiesel system, less rust under car, a good exhaust line, and a bunch of stuff that just so happened to cooridnate between the two cards such as certain doors having issues where the other one's doesn't. Complete luck overall.

Car #1 has a bunch of work done to it, which i'm not going to rap on about here. But there are many things i can pull over to car #2, and also there are as is segments on #1 that are better and will be pulled over too. Hood from #1, dash from #1, both front doors from #1, so on and so forth.

Both cars are fully registered and insured and drivable. #2's major issue is the main vacuum pump is not working properly so the engine needs to be manually shut off after key shutoff, the locks are manual of course, and the brakes have no power so it's like pressing concrete blocks. The pads are good though.

I was going to jump right into the pump swap and get #2 to be immediately coasting well, but as i mentioned in other threads #2 has a mold issue in the interior that i need to address. I have to wear a particle mask while driving or else my lungs end up irritated after just 10 minutes driving, even with the windows down.

When i first pulled up to my house the first thing i did was remove all of the floor mats and hang them out to dry. The back left one was fully soaked and dripping. And then then next morning i went and cleaned out the drain holes in left and right side of engine bay which is the main (if not only) cause of water getting to both rear floor mats when it rains.

The problem now is that in the front right floor, the 1/4" padding beneath the floor mats, that is adhered to the "floorboard", is totally soaked still. It does not appear to be easy to dry this out. Below is a picture...

You can even see the water in the circle there. If you press around it, water squishes up from it. It's totally soaked.

What should i do? The drivers side appears to be dry although it might not be perfectly dry underneath of it.

Are these supposed to dry out pretty quickly by design? The thing is, i believe i may have fully caused the passenger side one to be soaked while i was doing testing of cleaning out the drain holes in engine bay as stated above. I thought that it was cleared completely but it turns out there was still a clog deep in, and when pouring water in much of it went down into passenger section. But some of it may have already been there before. I'm not sure. I actualy hope i am completely responsible for the soaking because then maybe it will dry out in a couple days.

Any thoughts? The smell in the car seems to be slowly decreasing but even after having the mats out for 24 hours with windows open i still had to use a mask yesterday eve and my lungs still suffer today from it. I have the edges of most carpeting lifted up to dry but i assume there may be some mold underneat these front floor pads.

Is this pad stuff removable and replaceable? As you can see i lifted up a little square section toward front. Came up pretty easy but falls apart easily so would not be a clean removal but rather a destructive one.

And what is it's purpose? Is it there to prevent sound from under car entering cabin? And general insulation of temperature? What happens if i just remove it for now? Loud and cold car? Could i just dig it all up and out and worry about replacing it later?

I use a large sponge to soak up what I can and drain it on the ground ~ this takes time and effort but is worthwhile to me .

If you rip up the padding you'll get serious noise and bad fitting carpets to boot as the floor isn't flat .

I've forgotten the name but there used to be a spray stuff you'd dilute with water to kill mildew , mold and fungus , maybe a very weak mixture of bleach and water ?. BE CAUTIOUS WITH BLEACHING PRODUCTS ! .

You need to buy a Mity-Vac tool, diagnose and repair the vacuum pump ASAP as it's a serious safety item .

Once you've isolated the issue it's easy to repair and soon you'll have proper shifting as well as *instant* engine shutoff and door / truck / fuel flap locks .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Thank you. Whichever car i drive daily, i will keep the good vac pump in. For now, with the serious mold issue, i don't want to subject myself to driving in #2 so i'll keep the pump where it is in #1 and drive that one until i clear the mold in #2.

I have a mighty vac already. I believe i'm equipped to do the swap whenever i am ready. What all will it entail in terms of installing and checking vac? Just tetsing the pump itself for 12 psi or whatever it is? I rememer in #1 the main pump tested fully well with mighty vac.

Would love to know the name of the spray if you think of it..

20" of vaccum when tested at the pump's inlet .

12" isn't going to do anything .

I hope you've begun the normal ritual engine & chassis cleaning and de greasing because where you're going to be working is always filthy and tiny bits of crud WILL fall in and cause more problems .

Before taking the 'bad' pump off, remove the hard line and then the valve that screws in and check it ~ they fail and/or get cruddy and so cause loos of vacuum when the pump is otherwise still healthy and no need to dismount it .

The pump proper is held to the engine by 5MM ATF hed allen screws and they're always full of dirt, clean them out with a tiny flat screw driver and always tap the Allen wrench or socket (better to use a 3/8" drive Allen socket) before trying to turn them loose .

I'd go check out the Dollar Store typ places for mildew killers ~ read the labels .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Ok 20, yeah i just couldn't remember the number.
And thanks for the suggestions. I will follow these before doing anything. It sure would be nice if the "bad" pump had a fix possible. Then i would have the option of driving both cars safely for a while.

I have not fussed with anything under the hood. Just been worried about the mold.

I received some advice on engine cleaning in my other project thread for car #1 so i will follow that.

I still have a question of these pads though.. if i were to soak them with mildew killer and/or if i need to just let them dry out from the water... do these pads ever fully dry out on their own? I've used paper towels and pressed down and got all of the water up and out that i can, but there is still a thin layer of water sitting under all of it. I have been leaving the windows open but i could see this taking a month to dry like that, no?

Is there some kind of powder i can put down to absorb and then vacuum out?

I'd suggest renting a dehumidifier and running it in the car for a day or two.

GOOD CALL. I had a large one in the basement that's currently sitting in the front passenger seat. No reason for me to not keep running it the next several days like this. Maybe i'll attack the carpet of interior with some mildew treatment as well during this. However my original plan was to pull up all of the carpeting and swap this as well. But maybe that's opening up a can of worms. Might be better to just deep clean #2's carpet.

A friend stopped over and we swapped the hoods of my cars. So now #2 has the better hood overall.. no bubbling of paint, no major scratches, and it just so happened that the medallion was present and the grill was much better so it was a two birds ordeal.

I am likely going to tackle swapping the two front doors this weekend. The entire doors i mean. Paint, dents, window regulators (replaced/refurbished), rust, door checks, are all great on #1 so it makes sense for me to do this. #2's front doors have issues on all of the above factors. And i had also already installed 6.5" speakers on #1's front doors too, which was NOT easy. Only complication is i will need to consider keys and locks.

I agree, leave the dehumidifier in , don't mess with the under pads ~ once you're damaged, you're in for a spot of bother .

The door handles are dead easy to swap over, you'll need a long (like 18") #2 Philips head one to loosen the forward screw .

Have a small magnet on hand as it's easy to drop the super short screws and mind the special lock washers ! .

Might as well puff some graphite lube in the key holes now before they get a chance to freeze up . NO OIL, NO WD40 CRAP ! . graphite only . I use liquid graphite .

I'd address the vacuum issues before anything else, you'll be amazed at how much difference it makes in the shifting plus not having to pop the hood to shut it off anymore .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Ok, I went and checked the vacuum pumps on both vehicles, starting with the known good one and then the new #2 one assumed to be bad.
I cleaned the connection areas before fiddling, and hooked up the mighty vac and on #1 got a perfectly solid 22.
On #2, i got total 0 and i figured since i had a hand pump connected i could see what happens when i tried generating pressure and it does not hold anything.
Now, this is with the main tube still connected from the vacuum pump to the brake booster, since that is so difficult to disconnect. I simply disconnected the two other lines and plugged one and used the other for testing. Did it the same way in both vehicles.

Can we glean any information/diagnosis of #2 with the knowledge that no pressure is held at this spot when hand pumped?

Figured I'd ask that before trying anything else.

Also, so far it seems i've very much removed a lot of the mold issue from the vehicle. I left the dehumidifier and also a heavy duty air purifier running in the car overnight. A little dangerous but oh well. I have also now sprayed the Mold Control (EPA approved non-bleach natural solution) in multiple phases over all of the dirty looking areas of carpet and also those floorpads in front seats. Also along the edges along side seats that get dirty too. Also under the bench seat.

When i sit in the car now it smells closer to #1, just like vintage vinyl, and it seems to be improving throughout the course of the day as i've had doors wide open (light shut off) all day.

The part of the pump that the hard line attaches to, it the valve ~ unscrew and remove it, it's only allowed to blow through one way .

They're available new if it's bad .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I don't quite understand... Are you saying that the section of the pump itself that this hard line attaches to is confirmed bad and we know this from my test of getting no held vacuum when pumping handheld along hard line between pump and booster?

Or are you saying i should take that section off and test it by blowing one way and if it blows both ways it is them confirmed bad?

And what might it be called in stores if i shopped around such as peachparts?

Just one last update for the day, before i run out of daylight.
Not enough time to do the actual job of removing pump or section of pump, but i was curious enough to remove the hard metal line that connects all of the rubber lines to the pump, and do a test on the pump directly in this manner.
With the engine off, i can do a hand pump test and it holds vacuum. I had not tried this with engine off when test point was on the rubber lines though, only while engine was on. So i don't know if this concludes anything.
With the engine running, it was the same as before and i do not get any vacuum with hand pump.
I also was surprised that the engine didn't shut off using the shutoff button but rather stuttered. Then when i pulled off the connection to pump and hit shut off switch it shut off fine.
This doesn't make sense to me but i don't actually know what i'm doing

Sometimes I'm not sure what you're doing either but don't give up ! .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

haha
well here's a picture of the hard metal line that i removed. it appears to me to be just a simple angled pipe to connect the pump to the hard rubber line which then feeds the whole vehicle it's vacuum.

But i had taken it off thinking it was the piece described above by you regarding only blowing one way.
Is this the piece that should only blow one way?


When i had done the last test i'd just mentioned, i was connecting the mighty vac directly to the top of the pump where this line used to connect.

And here's the bad pump, completely off.
I removed the fan and the shrowd to get access, and also loosened the power steering pump bolts to loosen the tension of belt to get the vacuum pump up and around the belt without damaging the radiator.

I'm not looking forward to tightening up the power steering belt when i close this up. It was not behaving that nicely even with all three bolts loosened. I can tell that step has my number.

After removing the pump, i tried unscrewing a couple of the flathead screws. Man those are on super tight.

Is that the section i should be opening up to potentially replace some sort of valve inside?

For now I might just avoid that whole headache and pull over the pump from other car and work on refurbing this pump later.