Anyone interested in a 300D Turbo with the manual tranny swap already completed?
 

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/cto/2487613509.html

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/300D-Turbo-Diesel-Converted-4-Speed-Manual-/190553946378?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item2c5de6790a

So it is in North Georgia (real close to me), and I do want one of these (turbo and a manual transmission) but I have never been a fan of the blue interiors (anything is better than blue, except maybe vinyl blue). Also it needs to be repainted (as is with most at this price level) unless you don't care about the paint. I am sure some of yall (can I use that word?) have seen it but just wanted to dedicate a whole thread to it just so anyone who needs it, can be sure to see it then buy it. Also while I have this thread open, I wanted to point out one of the dumbest mods I have ever seen on a car. Worst of all, this is on a classic 71 Ford Mustang: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1971-mustang-F350-4-x-4-monster-/120748260617?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item1c1d283d09
So while we are at it, if you have nothing to say about the Mercedes, post what you think is the worst modded car

How do you "re-balance" a heavy flywheel to "match" a flexplate?

Sixto
87 300D

Clearly not the way you would match to the old flywheel if it had one....probably most people would take it to neutral and then hope for the best..
If someone gets that turbo manual...
check on the antivibration weights MB put ONLY on the driveshaft of manual trans cars...
Might make all the difference..

Interesting, it sold for $1600 which is cheaper than the asking price of most other 300D's around here. I wonder if the deal falls through or not.

leathermang,

Please elaborate on this, since I have a vibration that I attribute to a bad rear diff in my '87. Feel free to pm, if that's more appropriate.

Strange the guy didn`t have any pictures of the engine. think it was $1300 this morning when I first saw it, but reserve wasn`t met.

wonder why he sold it for $1600 on e-bay when he has it listed for $2500 on CL.

Charlie

Well, unless the engine is blown, there is still a limit to a car that has almost half-million miles on it (436K). The new owner only has so much time with that engine.

What do you mean?? They are good for at least a million miles, right :rolleyes:

He match balanced it, the machine shop took the original driven plate from the automatic, and measured whether it was a neutral balance or weighted. Then with that information, the machine shop should be able to duplicate the same degree of balance on the flywheel to preserve a potential balanced with the crank issue.

Say for example it was 1/4 ounce heavy on one side (with the crank position marked). Then the machine shop can take the far heavier flywheel, and duplicate the 1/4 ounce heavy the same way.

Every time I did this, the original driven plate turned out to be neutrally balanced, but its worth doing while you are at that step, as apparently every now and then there is an engine with a crank that was balanced with the driven plate attached.

I was reading on some other thread that these engines are probably the ones where they couldn't just get the perfect balance on the crank, so made the balance up externally. In this case, its basically impossible to be sure unless you make sure during the conversion.

This is pretty commonly done for this swap.

I think matching to the drive plate alone... leaving out the torque converter ... sounds funny....
Taking it to neutral and then hoping for the best is what it sounds like is happening.. ignoring the torque converter..

Passenger Car model Series 123 Service Manual 1976
( but I have read it in other later MB FSM's )
Under ' innovations '

Propeller shaft assembly, checking, and adjusting jobs.

first paragraph page 125 describes size and number of shafts for gas engines

second for 4 cyl diesel ( 123.120/123/126)

Third paragraph reads :

"Vehicles with 5 cylinder diesel engine (123.130) are provided with with a two part propeller shaft. The vibration eliminator at front shaft is installed only on vehicles with manual 4 speed transmission. ....."

Then it describes the diameters of the shafts
The picture shown does not identify a ' vibration eliminator' but does show a rubber sleeve... I do not know if they are the same...

Perhaps Whunter can help track this down...
but from what I have read it seems like if a person simply shortens and balances the stock auto trans 5 cylinder driveshaft that this would not fit on it ... due to diameter of the different shafts at this location....

The torque converter is a replaceable component in multiple varieties for various applications and likely to be altered/serviced/replaced during the cars life. Its unlikely something like that would be used to balance out the crank, especially during engine construction phase, vs the driven plate or harmonic balancer.

Unless you were doing this conversion, the driven plate is something that would not typically be removed or serviced while being directly bolted to the crank, so I figure MB engineers would be comfortable using it to make up a shortfall or something.

Who knows, we could go the other way and balance issues could also have been resolved up front on the harmonic balancer too, but match balancing is a pretty typical machine shop function, would not be hard to do it properly just in case. The majority would be neutrally balanced anyway

I am just thinking that the concept of match balancing.. with two items so different in weight probably does not do much... the torque converter provides a lot of cushion in terms of transmitting vibration further into the system... I think neutral on all this stuff is about the best one can hope for...