He lives and works in SF. The affordable "country" w/ acres to work is at least 60 miles away in the very hot Central Valley. I don't think anyone loves an old car enough to relocate where they can baby it. On the flipside, last time I was walking in SF, there was a beautiful 80's 300D in silver on the street, down from the Coit Tower. My son said if I painted our 84 like that, he would feel a lot better driving it. Other people probably enjoy seeing that classic M-B on the street. It makes SF better.

The noises described sound like good noises to me. High-pitch, raspy noises are usually external to the engine, like something in the belt system - bad bearing, fan clutch, something hitting the fans. Loosen the belts and spin each accessory. I found my similar noise that way. Worst might be the vaccum pump and he could easily change that on the street. Sometimes tinny noises come from under the valve cover, but usually more of a tapping sound. A bad injector can also sound like that, and that could be swapped on the street. A cracked flexplate can make a sheet-metal sound (my 02 T&C). Major damage to the block would usually be a deep, thuddy sound. When my 85 300D engine failed, it sounded like a ball bearing was bouncing around, but it was a deep sound, not raspy. It actually made this sound twice, 6 months apart. When I pulled the head, something had been bouncing around in the #1 cylinder, leaving deep marks and a few chunks were missing from the top edge of the piston.