I've been looking on and off for about a year for a clean '86-87 300SDL. Finally bought one last week. Patience paid off. Bought the car from the second owner. Car has verifiable milage of 107K and near perfect paint, body, and interior. Took the car on my weekly road trip from the DFW area down to central Texas - a round trip of about 600 miles. I love this car, and it loves the open road. Awesome! This is the first MB I've owned. I'm already very attached.

Of course, shear age has taken some toll on the car. Most of the problems seem to be with tired vacuum hoses and related components. With help from past posts on this forum I'm going to troubleshoot my door locks later this week. I've already learned a lot about the car from the knowledgeable posters on this site - Thanks!

I've heard that the timing chain should be replaced at 100k miles. What is the prevaling opinion on this board? Any other major maintenance I should consider. I've already read the posts on the air bag. I think I'll keep the $1800 and hope for the best.

I read some posts regarding vacuum pods that control dampers in the ACC, so I've educated myself some on this topic. ACC seems to work OK with one exception. At all settings I get cold air (vent) from the center vents. This is a big problem since its starting to get cold. I assume that there must be an actuator that controls the routing of air between the heater box and cool air plenum to these vents. Is this particular actuator easily accessible or is it one that requires removal of the whole dash?

I'm also looking for a service manual (paper). I bid on one last week on ebay but it got away from me. I also noticed that you can buy service manuals on CDs on ebay. I assume that most of these are bootleg copies of the official MB versions that appearently sell for $120 or so. Has anyone bought one of these off ebay? I really need some wiring and vacuum diagrams.

I have other questions but I'll post them separately.

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'87 300SDL
'96 F250 Crewcab PowerStroke
'00 Kubota L2600
'66 Malibu ragtop (SOLD, sob)
'01 BMW M3 ragtop