Recently, I purchased a 1981 240D with a 4speed manual transmission in pretty rough condition.


My plan is to bring the car back to a reliable condition with a few upgrades along the way.
I've already changed all the fluids and filters, replaced the glow plugs, and adjusted the valves.
Next up is to sort out the inoperative fuel gauge.
There is a lot of low hanging fruit on this car that needs to be sorted out, and then some bigger stuff like repairing engine and transmission leaks, replacing the exhaust, overhauling the suspension, and eventually doing something about the water leaks and horrible interior.
Onward and upward....

Well, this hit a snag.
My intention was for the car to be a "rolling restoration". A car that I could drive while making improvements. It does not appear that this is going to the case.

After doing some general maintenance I found that the engine would not start.
I had the car towed to a German Specialist shop where I used too work.
This was close to 2 months ago. They informed me this past Friday that it is there opinion that the compression in the engine is too low and it will need swapped or rebuilt.
The compression numbers for the engine are LOW (240, 240, 260, 240) but I still think it should be able to run on those numbers, and in fact it was doing so before I did the maintenance work.

In any case, it appears that I will be rebuilding the engine and transmission.
I will be doing suspension, interior, etc while the drive train is out with hopes to have a decent driver in time for late summer, early fall.