Folks,

As mentioned in another recent post, I was changing the oil on my 87 SDL the other weekend. Looking around while it was draining (from the plug below) I looked at the oil cooler lines. Wondering, I went in and looked at my CD version of the manual. They explicitly say to the effect of " don't worry about the oil sitting in the oil cooler and lines". So no matter how long I would wait, there would be existing oil in the engine anyway. This may be part of the reason for the oil turning black so quickly. I believe it amounts to about a quart.

So all this points back to Larry's mantra... change it often (you know the rest 8^) ). So if a quart was in there, I change at 3K intervals. So it goes another 3K and is diluted in the new 8 quarts. So at the "6K" oil change I would get 8/9's of the old oil out. Not enough old stuff to worry about.

Being pretty new to MB and diesels...do most MB diesels have oil coolers? Does anyone drain their's at O/C time?

Chuck