New Acquisition And Dash Buttons

[apt403]

Hey all - I finally have a reason to join this forum, because I'm the proud new owner of an '84 300D!



Sorry for the blurry pic, I'll get some better ones up when the light's better.

I've been scanning classifieds, eBay, and Craigslist for about a year now. People don't like getting rid of these cars, it seems. Finally found one, about 150 miles away from me in Lake County (I'm located in Redding, CA). The paint's faded, and it appears that someone sprayed a clear coat without properly prepping the body, because it's coming off in sheets. The body's in pretty good shape, otherwise. One tiny dent on the truck is all I've been able to find. No rust. After I get the mechanics hammered out, I'll have some spray bombs mixed up to fix the fading - The hood seems to be the trouble area.

Replaced all the fuses and the air cleaner yesterday, also tightened the boot from the air cleaner to the turbo, spools a bit faster now.

Tonight I'm going to do a fluid change (oil, diff, tranny, brake), replace the brake pads, and check out the state of the vacuum system. The tranny shifts pretty hard from 1-2 and 2-3. What's the consensus on the shift points? I'll get the numbers off the tranny when it's on jackstands in a bit. It seems to shift at 3400/3500 right now, which seemed a little high to me, but I stumbled across a post somewhere that said 4k RPMs was right. I need to check out the vacuum system before messing with the Bowden cable none-the-less.

Is there a pictoral anywhere about cleaning the banjo bolt, etc?

If I can track down a valve cover gasket locally, I'll do the valves and check the timing chain tomorrow.

Got a power steering filter on order from Napa, so I'll flush and fill the power steering on Monday.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the 5 buttons to the right of the climate control wheel do? Seems like the indicators are missing, they've just got clear faces, which kinda has me scratching my head.


Is cavitation a problem on the OM617? I know some of the diesel engines from Cat, International, Cummins etc., are suppose to get SCA additives in the coolant. Not sure about this one.

Also, is there an online manual available for these cars? I've bought the licensed PDFs of the Ford shop manuals, haven't been able to find anything similar for the W123.

Pretty stoked I finally picked one of these up. I'm thinking about doing the EGR delete - I want to remove the ALDA and fit the car with EGT and boost gauges, but this car's destined to be my girlfriend's daily driver, so I figure I should probably keep that protection in place. The OM617 is quite a bit different than my 6.9l International IDI, all the mechanical systems seem much more refined.

-Apt