MB 616 diesel powered Astro build - Page 2



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ASE Master Mechanic
asemastermechanic@juno.com

Prototype R&D/testing:
Thermal & Aerodynamic System Engineering (TASE) Senior vehicle instrumentation technician.
Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH).
Dynamometer.
Heat exchanger durability.
HV-A/C Climate Control.
Vehicle build.
Fleet Durability
Technical Quality Auditor.
Automotive Technical Writer

1985 300SD
1983 300D
1984 190D
2003 Volvo V70
2002 Honda Civic

https://www.boldegoist.com/

Calling JB3 you're famous again mate!

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

it's curious how identical the Astro front subframe looks like my 76 Firebird.

Nice project! That box you indicated on the master cylinder is the primitive rear ABS if memory serves me.

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-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

That is a ton of work to put into such a crap-pile van!!!!
The custom adapter plate I bet is worth twice what the van was......
Somebody sure can weld, though!

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Back when I had a Datsun Maxima diesel wagon there was a guy on the nissandiesel forum that swapped in a LD28 from a Maxima into his Astro van. A solid six cylinder 2.8L engine with a cast iron cylinder head...and you could add a turbo with factory parts from the L28T gasser engine.

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Steve A
92 W140 OM603
97 VW Jetta TDI
90 Passat variant TDI 6 speed MT
94 Chevy K1500 6.5TD
05 E320 CDI
+ others

he's making good progress. I wish I'd known he needed good subframes... I've crushed 4 rust free astro's...

as for the look of the subframe compared to an F body, yeah it's similar, but WAAAY shorter, and MUCH beefier than the F bodies... (I've got 4 first gen F cars...)

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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!

I can't fathom how slow that is going to be when its finished.

Lol, pretty good guess, adapater did cost twice the money I paid for the van.
Crap pile is a relative term, I like those old astros. Same kind of sickness that makes mb enthusiasts spend thousands restoring a old 123.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Link is from page 2 of that thread. I'm also turboing the 616 on page one, and interestingly that shorty astro is a mere 200 lbs heavier than a 240D. (Stripped as it is for work)
I think even with NA it might have similar performance as a regular 240, though this is all estimation. The gear ratios in the T5 I'm using and the astro 3.71 rear end are all slighty more advantageous than the stock mb ratios also.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

Lol, whunter has called me out. I hadn't intended to post up this project until it was actually running and I could see if it worked. Now that its up though, ill just slowly update it with my other threads on it. Now I really have to get it done, too many lenghty unfinished project threads out there.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

touche!

__________________
Steve A
92 W140 OM603
97 VW Jetta TDI
90 Passat variant TDI 6 speed MT
94 Chevy K1500 6.5TD
05 E320 CDI
+ others

I would use that van to go pick up all the mb parts I regularly haul back from the yard ,all it needs now is a plastic fantastic front grill off an sec.My yard outback is starting to look like a mercedes boneyard out of one of those paintings from past vintage cars of yesteryear.

Some progress, this is whunter signed us up for. endless boring chevy pics

So the clutch pedal, which is a major hurdle of the manual swap is just about resolved, some final welding to do once I have the right angle, but it hangs in the correct area finally-
from the outside, this is where the slave is supposed to poke through on vans that had this provision. Turns out that if I had done this on an 87, there would be stock holes and I could just fire the pedal in, but since this is an 89, they didn't punch them, which complicated how to fit the pedal in-



after drilling a bunch of little holes and carefully working with the hacksaw and dremel, the hole for the slave was finally cleaned up-



stock chevy clutch master for manual astro applications-



mounted outside and inside-




For where the pivot needed to go, drilling some horizontal holes in this tiny inaccessible area was not really possible, at least for me, and I decided to instead cut a slot, build a pivot, and weld it up when I had it fitted properly.
this is where the hole is supposed to be i think, matches on both sides with this weird little curve-



I notched out that whole area on both sides- (not the cleanest cut in the world, but ill dress it up before I weld.



meanwhile with the pedal I made this little pivot piece with a couple ears for welding-




fitted it lines up pretty well, now to weld it in-




overall, this was a huge pain in the rear. Pics later once I weld it in (if I do a good enough job to display to the world)

__________________
This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

and if you'd posted this before you started revamping the rust on the first one, I'd have GIVEN you an 87 shorty work van with a low miles diff, and new springs... rust free of course... original owner right here!

the sickness I have for MB's started with Astro's... I had 6 (4 astro's 2 safari's...) now I've only got the one 2000 long body... (I GOTTA get the intake gaskets changed some day...)

__________________
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!