Hello everyone,

I just got an older low-mile engine from a '79 240D to put in my '82 240D. This engine has some differences that have me puzzled.

The new ('79) engine has an oil cooler with lines coming off the oil filter housing. The old engine doesn't have an external oil cooler. Can I just exchange the oil filter housings and do without the oil cooler?

Also, the new engine uses a different injection pump and it looks like the vacuum lines and linkages are different from the old engine. Is there any problem with using the old injection pump on this engine.

Thanks for any advice, Jim

Been there, done that.

Yes, you can use the oil filter housing without the oil cooler.

If you have both cars, you will be able to get the pieces from the early car throttle linkage to work on the later car.

The biggest thing will be the glow plug circuit. The late car has parallel glow plugs, while the early car has series. To do a permanent change, you will need the series glow plug relay that is behind the instrument cluster. You will also need a fuse strip holder which is on the firewall behind the engine.

When I put my series glow plug motor in my late 240D, it was temporary, so I used a Ford starter relay. Mounted it on the fender well near the battery. I then used a momentary contact pushbutton switch, a standard MB one that fit in the upper center of the instrument panel. The pushbutton kicks the relay. The high current contacts on the relay then connect the battery to the glow plugs through the fuse block that I mounted to the firewall. Works great. I just push the switch for a few seconds then start the engine. It is a temporary rig, if you want it permanent, you should use the series glow plug relay.

Is the '79 motor from a Euro car? I ask this because I don't know of any US models without an oil cooler.

Good luck,

Thanks Larry,

Your knowledge is invaluble for me and others that read this board.

Yes, my '82 is a European one. It is really cool, no options at all except for it being an automatic (yuk). This car has been bulletpoof so far.

Just out of curiosity, why do the Euro models not have an oil cooler? Do they use a shorter oil change interval or do they just figure that we Yanks would be harder on them? Hard to imagine seeing as how the Germans can let loose even with 240 in the slowest lane of the Autobahn.

Thanks again Larry, Jim