I have been reading the posts about vacuum pump failure and the related bad things that can happen. It seems that there are early and late style pumps with the later ones having the caged bearings{good}.
My 85 300TDT has 312K miles on it and I bought it from the original owner, so I have every maintenace record since the first oil change. I went through the 2" stack of receipts and found nothing on the vacuum pump ever being replaced. How do I tell if I have the ticking time bomb pump or a good one. Dont want any catastrophic engine failures as this car is in really nice shape.
Thanks
John

ya pull it and verify the bearing has a cage...

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The OM617 engine has a different vacuum pump; the problems posted here relate to the early vacuum pumps on OM60x engines. I've not heard of the OM61x-style vacuum pumps having this problem; I never had any problems when I had an '85 300D-T.

BTW, is your car a T-sedan (station wagon)?

Jeremy

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Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
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Yes, it is a wagon. Champagne metallic/Palamino MB Tex.
Thanks for clarifying the vacuum pump issue....I dont know how I got it in my mind that it was the 617 engine that had the issues.

The vacuum pump of the OM61X engines can fail spectacularly and when the parts end up between sprockets and the timing chain, chain breaks and the engine has major damage. The bearings of the OM61X vacuum pump are never covered, but if you replace them, you can use (one-side) covered bearings.

Ok Govert...so you are saying that the pump bearings are indeed an issue with the 61X engines and are not isolated to the 60X? Then, with 312K miles on my 617; I'm living on borrowed time?

On a Dutch forum a member who used to do the maintenance for a fleet of W123 taxis back in the days, said that he replaced the bearings of the vacuum pump every 200,000 km as a prevention. The bearings don't cost much and fatal engine damage could be avoided. If you only replace the bearings, and not the entire rocker arm (which is expensive), be sure not to deform the "fork" when you press the bearing in. And press on the outer ring of the bearing, so as not to put force on the bearing balls.

Alternative is a new rocker arm or a new vacuum pump.

It is difficult to say whether your vacuum pump will fail, there is some evidence that too much play on the intermediate shaft will cause vacuum pump failure, see this thread:
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/204187-what-particular-causes-vacuum-pump-failure.html

The early 300Ds had the same plastic bearing cage issue but the OPs is an 85 so you would not expect his to have an issue unless some one swapped an older Vac Pump.

But, there is other issues that can ruin a Vacuum Pump:
New Vacuum Pump Ruined due to too much Timer/Intermediate Shaft End Play (the title from my notes).
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=258062&highlight=vacuum

Also speculation from another thread has that your Vacuum Pump has to work harder/more often if you have abnormal vacuum leaks wearing the Pump parts out sooner.

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