Got a 1985 300D turbo - Page 4 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

vwnate1 · #46 09-12-2018, 09:25 AM

I'm going to make a bowl of popcorn, this is getting very interesting .

ykobayashi · #47 09-13-2018, 11:27 PM

decided to finish up my lock vacuum stuff and the interior work before digging into the turbo zero boost issue. I thought I'd be tidying up but I ended up sinking two days into various jobs.

Plastic wrapped my inner doors before putting my door cards back in.

Power washed the inside of my car. The area under my seat was foul. Same brown saucy stuff. Some noodles dried on to the floor. The car still stinks. I may have to go for enzyme pet cleaner. Looks better.

Dash after wood repair and glove box repair.

This was interesting. I got a good passenger seat from a 300CD at LKQ. I was thinking I'd strip the covers off it and put them on my seat. Same color and the springs were good. So good I decided to use the spring box too for the lower cushion and bolt my upper seat back to it. My seat back was good enough and it had the arm rest and lacked the funny pneumatic release button of the CD.

So I mated the CD spring box to the D seat back after removing some air lines and pneumatics. After messing around and sweating, my jaw dropped when I saw this.

I thought dang, what a gap between the two pieces. How can this be? I thought you could mix and match all this stuff. Must be because the CD needs different geometry to tip forward. So I took a good look at my seats. The seat springs were slightly different. The CD was shorter at the back. The CD seatback seemed a little longer on the bottom side.

The CD on the right doesn't have a J clip attachment at the back. It used hog rings. So I really couldn't swap covers which I thought of doing. I liked the CD's springs better. Mine were tired. So I decided I'd use the CD seat back. No arm rest. Use the pneumatic button to cover the hole. I'd taken it all apart for storage/disposal so I spent an hour putting it all back together. I forgot how to use string to pull the loops through the seat back and I had to install the seatback twice. I was kicking myself for taking everything apart. I figured I didn't need a CD seatback with the tip forward hinge hardware...I literally dug it out of my trash can on trash day today and set it aside. So I used it. I used the CD seatback with the CD seat with my rails.

Now I'm not sure this applies across the board. The CD appeared to be a upholstery redo job. There were some indications like staples on the J clip (not really j clip but the mb cardboard stuff) that didn't look OE. So maybe this doesn't apply across the board. I don't know for sure what the history of these seats are but it wasn't mix and match/plug n play.

The rails (story I was too embarrassed to tell) on the CD seat got ruined as I removed the seat at LKQ. Some genius had tried to pull the seat before me and rounded off the bolt. I tried everything to get that bolt out in the yard. It is a very tough steel. I pounded with a chisel and couldn't get through it. I hacksawed. I filed. I tried to drill with a hand crank drill which was all I had. I almost went down to lowes and bought a DeWalt Lithium angle grinder but I ended up using the chisel to cut the floor of the car open to free the seat. And hence I ruined the rails. No problem, I have rails. The swap was the puzzle as usual but I've solved it before.

Here is the result after many hours. I'm not sure my $50 seat was worth it but here it is and it looks just great. I got the seat back in the car tonight.

Tomorrow I'll start tackling the zero boost turbo. I started madly pulling vacuum lines and my new vacuum locks stopped working. Thankfully I know to save only the brown, yellow and black circuits. I'm gonna gut that EGR and flying saucer system.

I stopped by my local stealership after lunch and they ran my VIN. Trap Ox and Trap Cat work had been done in 91 and 97. No more free work to be done so I'm clear to start wrenching on that turbo.

vwnate1 · #48 09-14-2018, 08:44 AM

The black pipes are vents, not to be connected to vacuum .

I think you did well for a $50 seat .

ROLLGUY · #49 09-14-2018, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

The black pipes are vents, not to be connected to vacuum .

I think you did well for a $50 seat .

True, but the VCV to modulator tube is also black. The vent line goes from the side of the VCV into the cabin through the grommet.

vwnate1 · #50 09-14-2018, 10:19 PM

Just so Rich ;

However, you'd be amazed at how often I find the black vents pipes hooked directly to vacuum......

ykobayashi · #51 09-16-2018, 12:20 AM

Did a few hours of wrenching on the car today. Rollguys test pipe is in.

The turbo and Cat were pretty easy to pull out. It took a lot of time but nothing really fought me. Lots of flipping the 17mm open end wrench to access fasteners. I had sprayed down all the bolts with liquid wrench for a few days prior to the job so everything broke free nicely.

Some use fuel tools were my collection of metric gear wrenches, a short handled slim 3/8” ratchet by Wright Tool. Kind of an oddball but very useful in tight spots. My magnet ic pickup tool because I got tired of crawling under the car to pick up wrenches and fasteners I dropped.

My fav ratchet:

https://goo.gl/images/PBqQUe

I couldn’t really tell if the cat was clogged or not. The inlet was sooty but it was not really caked up. Who knows what was in there. I was going to try to blow through it with my shop vac but I decided I didn’t want a lung full of soot. The outlet side was very clean. I could clearly see the metallic grid.

The install was easy and everything fit. It was a lot easier after the trap cat was out. A lot more room to work. The reassembly went very fast.

So I took the car out for a drive with the bypass. I didn’t have the patience to check the boost. I just drove it. The result was quite dramatic. Off the line the car was about the same. Maybe just a bit more torque. But once I got going I could feel the turbo make power. Id say seat of the pants dyno feels like 30% more power while climbing the steep grades in my neighborhood. I have some greater than 10%. The car also shifts better now that I plugged up all the EGR with tees. It was really losing a lot of vacuum there.

Tomorrow I’ll know more. I’m going to check it’s boost pressure and try to figure out why my door locks stopped working.

vwnate1 · #52 09-16-2018, 07:44 AM

Boy howdy did you attack that seat mount ! .

I was taking parts off that coupe yesterday and my Brother commented on the mangled hole left behind , he wanted the captive nut plates .

I'm keen to see how much boost you have and want .

I got a new diaphragm for the A.I.R. valve to replace the bad one but still no one seems to know what it's for, what it does not how it works ~ my car shifts fine so I'm just fixing vacuum leaks .

ImBroke · #53 09-16-2018, 08:43 AM

I don't think you can measure boost pressure there unless you are driving the car. I always used to get zero there in the driveway. I think the car needs to be under load. I hooked up a cheap gauge and put it on the cowl and took off driving. Saw pressure then.

vwnate1 · #54 09-16-2018, 09:06 AM

Just so .

I have a boost gauge on my dashboard, soon to be mounted on the 'A' pillar .

Depending on how the ALDA is adjusted, the boost may come on sooner .

I just discovered how Dealer Techs richened up the ALDA without touching the seal back in the day .

ROLLGUY · #55 09-16-2018, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

..................
I just discovered how Dealer Techs richened up the ALDA without touching the seal back in the day .

Let me guess- remove the ALDA and put washers under it?

ykobayashi · #56 09-16-2018, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

Boy howdy did you attack that seat mount ! .

I was taking parts off that coupe yesterday and my Brother commented on the mangled hole left behind , he wanted the captive nut plates .

.

hahahaha! You mean this car?

I got a little carried away. I haven’t been to PNP in years and I had to make the most of it. My wife has forbade me from going there “honey, good folks stay out of those places...we can afford new parts.” So after insisting a night the parts were NLA I had to make the most of the trip.

I swear that seat was cursed. It just was not destined to be in my car. I seriously unbalanced the zen of the vehicle by insisting on owning it. I literally had to rip it out of the floor of that CD. It took 2 hours. With hand tools and brute force. I was going to write about it but I was so embarrassed I decided to say I got a seat at LKQ. Then the blasted seat went on to cross me up by not mix and matching with my 300d seat back.

Good point on measuring boost. I measured in the driveway while hand throttling it. I’ll have to work out a T and some ice maker line to get it inside. The car is really making power now. Looking forward to taking it out.

vwnate1 · #57 09-16-2018, 01:49 PM

Bingo Rich .

I wondered if that might cause minor leaks .

You're always teaching me tricks and tips, I don't want a mega boosted Diesel unlike the idiot brodozers, I was kinda surprised find this mod then I remembered my Dealer dayze in the malaise era when we were frantic to make the cars run properly without doing visible modifications .

-Nate
-Nate

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROLLGUY

Let me guess- remove the ALDA and put washers under it?

vwnate1 · #58 09-16-2018, 02:02 PM

Yep, that one

.

You didn't upset the car's karma one bit ~ it's slowly being taken apart bit by bit, still lots of good bits there .

I got a near new up graded right rear Coupe window lift and a few other bits & bobs .

The wastegate diaphragm is bad so I left it .

You're correct, the engine needs to be under load when doing boost testing, I need to find a cheap spare boost gauge (basically any gauge that reads about 0 to 20#) so I can make proper adjustments once I get the wastegate fixed in my Coupe .

It's an amazingly easy thing to run a plastic boost gauge pipe in through the speedo cable's loose fitting firewall grommet ~ it sits low so you may not have noticed how accessible it is, just lay the test gauge in the center console .

The devil really is in the details, I've been a Mechanic for 50 years and have een enjoying learning how to tweak and peak old Mercedes diesels, lots and lots of good tech info is freely shared here, how it should be .

That particular LKQ is plain old nasty, with a bullet but they tend to lean towards older, low end Blue Collar stuff, mostly impounds, I've been going there since the mid 1970's when it was Ecology and on the other side of the wash .

They have a '79 (NA) 300D Sedan with good seat springs right near the entrance, it wasn't in their online inventory yesterday but I spotted it coming in .

You should write up your seat adventure, others will learn from it .

I now have an entire spare driver's seat and pool noodles to gusset the good springs (I like very firm seats) but I'm askeert to begin .

-Nate

Quote:

Originally Posted by ykobayashi

hahahaha! You mean this car?

I got a little carried away. I haven’t been to PNP in years and I had to make the most of it. My wife has forbade me from going there “honey, good folks stay out of those places...we can afford new parts.” So after insisting a night the parts were NLA I had to make the most of the trip.

I swear that seat was cursed. It just was not destined to be in my car. I seriously unbalanced the zen of the vehicle by insisting on owning it. I literally had to rip it out of the floor of that CD. It took 2 hours. With hand tools and brute force. I was going to write about it but I was so embarrassed I decided to say I got a seat at LKQ. Then the blasted seat went on to cross me up by not mix and matching with my 300d seat back.

Good point on measuring boost. I measured in the driveway while hand throttling it. I’ll have to work out a T and some ice maker line to get it inside. The car is really making power now. Looking forward to taking it out.

ykobayashi · #59 09-16-2018, 04:33 PM

I probably said all there was about the seat. I left a lot of sweat an tears in that car while ripping the seat from the floor. All people will learn is what an idiot I am. Luckily or unluckily the bolt to the seat rail was rounded off. Had the bolt come out the seat would have been gone. Three bolts were already out.

Yep, that car had some good parts. Another guy took the drivers seat while I was there. It was saggy. It had a set of chrome Bundts that looked pretty nice when I left it. I got my quarter panel trip strip from that CD. I cut it down with a hacksaw and plugged the end with the existing end cap. Took about a foot off it and it looks good on the 300d.

Okay but I should mention my boost numbers. I hooked an ice maker line to the T at the ALDL and ran it through my window. Plugged my mityvac into it and went for a drive. In neutral goosing the engine I could get it up to 5 psi but it took a couple of seconds to pump up. When I got it on the incline up to my home I saw pressures from 8 to 10 psi when I was climbing at a good clip.

Is that what I want to see? Well yes, it beats the zero I got while revving in in my driveway before I put the bypass in. The bypass is certainly flowing better than that trap cat. I now believe it was clogged. The car is making good power now. I actually made the tranny flare in 4th on the climb. I’ll need to revisit VCV settings and modulator pressure soon. I just bypassed the flying saucer and I may have too much vacuum on the modulator.

I guess the real way to tell if I’m happy with the amount of boost is mount a lambda meter and see how I’m fueling at those pressures. Then set the pressure and fuel appropriately. But I’m pretty happy now.

I need to look into some of the many other issues on the car like belt/alternator/water pump noise. Brakes. Electrical gremlins.

vwnate1 · #60 09-16-2018, 07:36 PM

The icemaker line is a good idea .

The boost should begin coming on around 2,000 RPM and climb steadily in every gear regardless of speed, the engine's load is what makes it climb .

going 50 MPH in top gear, ease on the throttle, it should go to 10 # of boost in 30 seconds or less .

Oops. gotta go . more later, you need to check the ALDA and wastegate for sealing, use the Mityvac . my Mityvac doesn't show pressure .