here's a photo of the underside of the kick panel below the instrument cluster.

....yuck.

I have identified 2 holes in the firewall that are open (I have returned the rubber pieces that belong in those holes....I can also see that there is dirty oil at the ignition switch....Guess what part I chose to replace?

indeed the shutoff valve....

Is this mess under the dash typical?

I'm in the process of clearing all of the vac. lines of any residual oil...

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Rob M
Norwich, VT USA
1980 240D Euro delivery 4 speed manual silver/blue
~160K miles

Leak at connection to oil pressure line?

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The Golden Rule

1984 300SD (bought new, sold it in 1988, bought it back 13 yrs. later)

mine wasn't that bad, but I did have some. The rubber on the switch was oily - replace with new. I cleaned out a couple plastic vacuum lines by attaching a thin wire to a pipe cleaner, rubbing alcohol, drag it thru, and blow out with compressed air.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Ah ha...I will employ the pipe cleaner drapped through the lines trick. As for the oil pressure line...I've yet to look into that.

Thanks for the info.!

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Rob M
Norwich, VT USA
1980 240D Euro delivery 4 speed manual silver/blue
~160K miles

Oil pressure line or your vac shutoff valve is leaking - a vac line runs to a switch mounted to your ignition assembly. That's what activates the vac shutoff valve. If your valve is bad (ruptured diaphram) oil passes though it and out into your vac lines. Causes all kinds of neat issues I had the same issue - not as much oil as you have though Cleaned out the lines and switch with brake cleaner and replaced the vac shutoff switch - life is good. On to the next project on the list

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'85 300D - 206K (sold)
'81 240D - 149K (sold)
'03 Jetta TDI - (sold)
'79 300D - (sold)

I replaced the vac shut off as it was leaking as evident by oil in lines and by lack of ability to hold vac.

I hope to "salvage" the ignition switch

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Rob M
Norwich, VT USA
1980 240D Euro delivery 4 speed manual silver/blue
~160K miles