While I have not participated in the forums, the information and guidence I have been able to resource here have enabled a sucessful rebuild and install of a 85 300d turbo engine. I just started it up yesterday. It sounded terrible and I was sure I did something wrong. There was grey smoke erupting frome the oil cap. There was an embarassing banging that echoed through the walls of every house on the block. I could here the windows shutting on the next door neighbors house in there attempst to prevent the cloud of nautious smoke from infiltrating thier living space. After about eight months of tearing down, machine work, 50 cans of parts cleaner, hours of searching for parts, the kids dealing with an engine in the kitchen(I'm single I can get away with it) I thought all was in vain
After reviewing these forums I learned about injector nailling and hoped it could be a possible cause. I did not drain the fuel from the tank which was full before I started. I had foud out that it was about five years old. I drained twelve gallons of fuel, pumped it out of the primary and the secondary aadded new fuel hose and filters and fuel. Still the horrible sound persisted. As per directed onother threads I cracked open the fuel linesone at a time. The numer four injector! I removed it and It looked like a piece of coal. It was encrusted in coke. The pintle was shoved back and I had to press the nozzle in stages with a plastic washer to free it. After a half hour of soking and scrubbing with a brass brush, I was able to reassemble the nozzle. Yes, checking for freedom of movement.After installation it was like a time warp to a quiet perfectly running machine. Very little smoke, no clatter, and only some blowby from the vacuum pump(I have not began to repair theleaks yet) Vacuum is vented into the injection pump sprocket and up with the timing chain through the valve cover(more so without restriction). When stripping down an engine to the bare block and reassebling with care, I seem to develop an intimate relationship with this car. Thanks for all the help. I highly recommend doing this to anyone considering. What a blast! While I am new to all this, I really dove into it. I may have some helpful info myself as to parts and so forth. Don't hessitate to ask, I'll try to get back. I think I'm going to take the other four injectors out and clean them.