Just picked up a 1974 240D as my first Mercedes. I've owned many of all other German makes and make a living building custom BMW Motorcycles.

Mileage unknown, we are the 2nd owners, original paint. The only thing that does not work is the electric radiator fan with the A/C removed before we purchased the car. This I would like to figure out.

Here are some pictures.

Family camping



to be installed



A little bling





missing molding on order



and my fathers day gift. My girls working on the Might Benz. One removing what was left of the A/C, the other fixing the rear seat belts and the wife detailing. It was a good day.



I would love some incite on the electric radiator fan not working?

Cool roof rack!

The electric fan only works with the ac, it will not work as an aux cooling fan....best to just remove it with the rest of the ac...

Remember the w115 240D has some interesting maintenance items, as in the oil bath air filter, injection pump requiring oil, 2 piece oil filter, leather diaphragm in the ip....that can go bad and cause a run away engine...you also have the diaphragm style vacuum pump, that can tear and cause oil to be sucked into the intake.

Also look into buying an OEM radiator cap...

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That is a nice W115! I also wouldn't worry about the aux fan unless you are planning on fixing the a/c. It was only fitted on cars with AC.

You could incite the fan into operation by installing a toggle switch to incite the fan relay.

Cars fitted with large luggage racks might well need the aux fan!!!

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Thanks for the info on fhe fan. It's not running hot. However in the summer we see temps of 110f/42c plus and we want to pull a small light weight camper so I thought the auxiliary fan would come in handy. Right now its in the 90, s and the temp is between 175 and 200.

I would personally advise to not tow a trailer with this car, it couldn't handle it....you would lose tons of power, fuel economy, etc...

Also if you were to wire the aux fan to work all the time, you would need to upgrade the alternator as it would have enough juice to power the fan, euro lights, stereo, trailer lights etc and charge the battery....

You may want to think of upgrading to a classic v8 american car, or a turbo 300d...

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I have to disagree In Europe these cars have been pulling small caravans around for 40 years as well as air cooled VW's with half the horse power as we have also done. Most of the campers we are looking at are under 1000 pounds.

It would be foolish to have the fan on all the time. As far as the alternator is concerned, do the math.

Headlight 110 watts
Tail and running lights 80 watts
Trailer lights 40 watts
Am/Fm stereo 15 watts
Auxilary fan 240 watts
Total 485 watts

Watts / volts = amps so 485 / 12 = 40 amps. I am running a 55 amp alternator, never wanting to use more the 80% of the alternators output that would be 44 amps.

I've owned and restored over 100 German vehicles. I don't think I could switch to an American car, however a 300 wagon would be nice to have, but I could not part with the Mighty 240D

Loving the luggage rack. I'll be looking to put a cargo rack/cage on top of my '79 300D (non-turbo) soon. I think they look great with racks on them.

Fun seeing the Santa Cruz sticker. I'm from that area originally. Seeing the temps you mention seeing during the summer, I imagine you're a bit inland?

Have fun with it!

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1979 300D 040 Black on Black - 1985 300D Maaco job (sadly sprayed over 199 Black Pearl Metallic) on Palamino

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Thanks. The roof rack was a fun project. I love an excuse to use my tubing bender. We are from Santa Cruz as well. Moved to Chico 14 years ago.
Cheers

Yesterday I updated the Mighty Benz to the pencil style glow plugs. WOW, what i difference. 2 hours of time, $150.00 in parts and no additional holes were drilled.

Parts List:
Ford style fire wall mounted solenoid
80amp fuse
1' 4g wire
3' 8g wire
6' 12g wire
inline 16 amp fuse(I used the fuse next the radio fuse)
4 Bosch 80035 glow plugs
intermittent heady duty switch
handful of various size eyelet connectors

Looking forward to seeing more of the build!

Did you buy the euro lights from the "my garage, Germany" guy on eBay? Oggled a lot of his stuff but never bought from him.

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68 280SL - 70 280SL - 70 300SEL 3.5 - 72 350SL - 72 280SEL 4.5 - 72 220 - 72 220D - 73 450SL - 84 230GE - 87 200TD - 90 190E 2.0 - 03 G500

Nissan GTR - Nissan Skyline GTS25T - Toyota GTFour - Rover Mini - Toyota Land Cruiser HJ60 - Cadillac Eldorado - BMW E30 - BMW 135i

I purchased them on eBay from VW-1 in Germany. Do you have a link to the eBay seller you mentioned?

The fast glow upgrade is my favorite modification to my 240D.

Here is the trailer we will be pulling with the Mighty Benz.

You shouldn't have any issues pulling that camper. It looks pretty neat. Have you got any pictures of it setup?