Hello all I just purchased a 83 300sd. The car has 283xxx body is rust free, but the clear is starting to peel. The interior is trashed the leather is rotten, it spent the first 12 years in az the next 6 in tn then placed in storage since 01. I Got her for a song and a dance. BUT I have to work at getting the title and no keys. The stealership will not cut me a vin key until I have a title they want title only here, Anywho, I tryed to start it today to get an evaluation of the motor and had read a post from before that stated that the diesels would start without a key. Well here is what I did. I pulled my 2002 superduty up put jumper cables one battery to the MB battery cables. Pulled the glow plug plug and made a custom adapter to ignigte the glow plugs and then jumped the strip on the fender well to get her to crank. Well crap she did not fire off, small puffs of smoke out the exhaust but never really popped. I know I know I should have drained the fuel and put good "new" stuff in but I was hoping to atleast hear her pop off just for a second but. So did I miss anything in getting this thing to start without a key? Vacume kill or something? I am not a fan of using any kind of starting aid "wd-40, either, starting fluid". but may try if you guys tell me that it should start without the key doing what I described. O one other thing I had some black motor oil show up on the belts as i started cranking made a mess on the trailer, looked around but could not locate where it was coming from, anyone had one do this before? the only thing i can see is the pully on the powersteering pump is rubbing a line that runs to the top of the Radiator, that line should be the trans cooler correct? Any help would be great.

Nope, that's the oil cooler and the the likely source of your black oil. Try running a soda bottle of fuel directly to the fuel filter and see if that helps.
Are you sure the glow plugs were getting hot? Pull the vacuum line off the shut off valve at the back of the injector pump to make sure it is not getting vacuum thru the ignition switch.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Whiew! you are looking at a few things wrong. the line to the top of the radiator... on the drivers side of the radiator? ... perhaps on the small tall radiator to the drivers side of the large radiator? that would be the motor oil cooler. if the PS pully is hitting it, you have motor mounts out, probably.
you need to pull the brown plastic line that goes to the back side of the IP to keep the vac fuel cutoff from killing the motor.
John

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

Thanks for the quick replys. I will pull the vacume line tomorrow and see if she will fire up. AS well as trying to move the line so that I can prevent the farther polution of my engine bay with oil.

i got her started! i had to help her out but she started. i think that the glow plugs + not bing started since 12-18-02+20 degree outside temp was making it hard. I first tryed without the vac line hooked up but no start. Then I tryed with a fog of wd40 lots of smoke but still not started, so last resort was a couple of fogs with starter fluid, she popped, choked, popped choked popped choked, then the majic took place, she started idled really rough not much smoke tho. I could hear a knock not like my trucks sound but a upper knock, well I let it idle and started spraying in more wd40 to help lube the upper end of the motor. still there sounded like it was coming from the front of the motor. well after it was warmed up, there is a fair amount of blow by but it took about 4 seconds of holding my thumb over the pvc pipe for the sound to change in the idle then about 2 counts later it died. So i need to look through the other post to see how bad that is. well I decieded to start her back up. no glow plugs and no wd40 or either. SO i decieded that maybe i should try the water trick to free any possible stuck rings, Well I got a liter bottle of water and started pouring it in it kinda pooled in the intake, i did not like that so I reved it up to about 2/3, and started pouring again but this time the water majicly curved into the depths of the intake. well I started pouring more and more no time did any black smoke or soot belch out of the tail pipe, anyway I kept pouring until I could hear the fire state to get quenched then backed off a little. After this treatment the upper knock sounded better, so I filled the bottle up again and did it again. following the same procedure. when finished I did not notice any sounds but the normal diesel knock, the otherone seemed to be gone. So I was little paranoid about the water and such so I got the wd 40 again and started fogging the intake in an effort to purge any left over water out and lube everything with a good coating of lite weight oil. It never did rev with the sprays of wd like I thought it might but she runs She has been nicknamed the brown trout.

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New to Mercs but already in love with diesels
2002 ford f-250 7.3L "pretty truck" 103xxx
1983 300sd 283xxx parts car
1984 300sd 167XXX motor from the 83.

Well I finally got keys but am still working on the title issue. The new keys worked perfect for one time. Then the locks of fort knox kicked in. I had to remove the lock system and disable it. Took about 15 minutes with instructions from the forum. I used a roll pin to keep the locking pawl pushed back into the housing and drilled and inserted the roll pin. key works great but the buzzer stays on all the time now, I left it unplugged. I also still need a small hit of either to get it started, I think the glow plugs may not be functioning or she is pretty weak on compression. She smokes white quite abit but there is no exhaust only a short piece of pipe 3 foot long. Once I get the title taken care of I will spend some money on it to get it running better. I did find the typical rust once I got the trunk open on the window edge tho.

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New to Mercs but already in love with diesels
2002 ford f-250 7.3L "pretty truck" 103xxx
1983 300sd 283xxx parts car
1984 300sd 167XXX motor from the 83.