Yep. I was fantasizing that I was working on a 1958 300SL not a 1985 300D.

Think about those guys working on switches and locks for those collectible cars. They’re like museum restoration artists. I recently saw a video (Matt Farrah?) driving a 300SL. The owner told him to be gentle with the key locks. Unobtanium.
.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Honestly I'd rather have / drive / work on, the '85 300D but that's me .

I buy old door handles etc. just to get the delicate little wafers, springs and so on inside them .

My Little British Cars needed quite a bit of lock help .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

After I got my axel boot debacle settled I decided I should change my grungy clear fuel filter and spin on filter. Wow, what an improvement. Usually I recall clogged filters limiting my top end power.

But I had plenty of power at speed. The issue was I had low stumbling power off the line. Well, I’ve heard it mentioned here many times that clogged filters can hurt tip in acceleration if the fuel pump is tired. That is probably my case.

I’ll need to look into rebuilding my lift pump at some point.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Fixed my shudder off the line. I’m not sure what did it but I changed two things at once. I replaced its regular return line to the tank with a real cigar hose. Not sure this would cause shuddering as I started out. Second I bottomed out the rack damper bolt. When I realized I’d bottomed it out I cut 0.060” off the lock nut with a file and moved it in a bit more.

No more shudder off the line.

So now I have decent low end power (diesel filter change), high end power (trap Catalyst delete), and I have smooth acceleration from a stop. Very nice.

This car is really starting to come together. I went out to lunch today and I actually enjoyed driving it.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Did an alignment using a Fastrax camber caster gauge.

My car pulls a bit on a crowned road to the right. I was curious about this so I got the Fastrax.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/ksearch/PEL_search_2016.cgi?command=DWsearch&description=Fastrax

Seems to work well. I played with my camber and it didn’t do much to the pull. I set it at zero on both wheels. Then zero on the passenger side and .75 deg on the driver side. This helped a bit.

The caster was a bit odd. 7.5 deg positive on the passenger side and +10 deg on the driver side. Perhaps this is causing the pull?

The car seems to be very sensitive to road crown. My SD is similar but not as bad.

When I drive on the wrong side of the road it isn’t so bad. That is, when the car is level with no road draft. I’m going to play with the caster tomorrow and see what happens.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

holy christ dude you may have just solved a major dilemma for my self..

Yeah I just love a freebie. My 82 SD was tougher, it needed the tach amp under the hood resoldered.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

i have already bought a computer and gauge cluster to fix this issue lol. this was the piece of the puzzle i was missing. this definitely was the issue thank you again.

i was soo mad about this lol.

Glad to hear you got it fixed. The cluster can be sold off or stored.

I finished my caster adjustment. Car drives amazing now. No pull to the curb. I’ll have to check my SD when I have the chance.

The 300d was so far out I think I had eight turns on the brake support bar to get those two degrees of differential caster dialed out. I wonder what happened to the car.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

you should measure the distance of the rear mounts on the chassis to the front ones, check for damage. what most likely happened is it either was compressed with an impact or pulled while being towed on a flat bed.

tach works again

i used a piece of heater hose to bridge the ports for the climate sensor. no difference, but the controller probably does not work anyways.

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85 300d 0m603, 717, he341, 50mm external W/G with open dump, intake manifold as well as intercooled. need to figure out a different trans before i throw more fuel at it. the 717 trans and 8" ceramic clutch are already pissed with stock elements.

Wow my car is really shaping up. It runs so smooth and makes good power now. We’ve gone through the transition point where neighbors and family are no longer laughing with ridicule and they’re saying “hey this thing is a nice car.”

I found out that one side of the parking brake shoes was steel on steel. The other side was fine. ?? Whatever. I got new shoes and it no longer rolls away.

I got a bunch of things from lkq Anaheim. Sun visors, c pillar covers, window switches. And a good mirror among other odds and ends.

Today I took the shift lever console apart and cleaned out more dried food and hair. Yuck. I disassembled the switches for the windows and cleaned out all the milkshake. Now the switches work. I also found a loose bushing in the shifter that had fallen out of the socket. That was my loose shifter...groan, but I bought all new bushings from Pelican. The story of my life.

Only a few more things left before I call it a daily driver. I need to fix the AC. I’ve left this till last R12 and has a small amount of gas left in the system. The PO cut the belt probably because the clutch is noisy.

I also would like to change the front window gasket. It is really hardened and cracking.

Finally I need to deal with the OE oil cooler lines. They may be weeping...or it is a power steering leak. They are still the wrapped style hoses. Perhaps I’ll take. Them off and go to a hydraulic hose shop.

Anyhow, things are working out. I was really worried I had bought a car with engine problems. Turns out the engine is tight and I got a rebuilt tranny as a bonus that the PO didn’t know about (he didnt know what R&R Transmission meant on his PO’s repair bill). The car has just had a ton of broken little things. I think I’ve racked up $400 at Pelican, $200 and Pick a Part and $400 elsewhere. Lotsa labor. My labor.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

And of course, Photos!

The end of my CV boot Debacle. Go Astoria!


Steel on steel E brake shoes on drivers side only. odd. But replaced and fixed.


Hirschmann antenna fix. This is the first time I've been able to fix a bent mast on one of these. I just had the patience to carefully tap out the kinks in the tube using a tiny ball peen hammer. Works now. Got at $16 car MP3 FM tuner on ebay to replace the dead radio. Plays SD cards and USB sticks.




Sort out my emblems. They kept catching on my sweater.


New Parts from Beige interior PNP car. They look good against my navy car. Funky.


the elusive sun visor and mirror.


c pillar non matching but looks great!

big improvement over cracked up broken stuff.


Opening switches. I press the button and sometimes the window doesn't open. Wonder what is inside the switch? EEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!



Rebuild and clean. Seriously gross. What the heck dude!?


Okay, that's it for now. Only a few big jobs left.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Always nice to see things working out .

The location of the window switches is awful .

I once had an old Volvo with the radio/cassette directly underneath the RADIO ew .

I've been teaching my self how to overhaul turbos and properly adjust both the waste gate and the ALDA ~ WOW what a difference ~ more power and much smoother plus increased fuel economy and the cloud of smoke is reduced and perhaps gone ~ I can't see it in the rear view mirror anymore when leaving a full stop .

I found a gutted 240D carcass and grabbed it's rear view mirror, it's better than the one in one of my W123's .

I was going to offer you the old unbroken one .

Those 'C' pillar covers are super easy to damage, once you know how to remove them you'll soon find a nice correct one .

I re glued the inner 'B' pillar upholstery, it looks new again .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Thanks. I got my mirror. I appreciate all the offers here for spare parts. Good community. I’m so jazzed on how the car is coming together.

Today I tried turning on the vents and nothing came out the center vent. Not a good sign. I decided it was time to wade into the ac system. I started to pull the climate controller out and I put 12v on each solenoid valve. Two didn’t click. Checked them with an ohmmeter and they were open. 1&3. That explains why I don’t leak vacuum on the green line under the hood and why I get no center vent action.

I went a bit further to mity vac the pods from the change over valves and found out that my pods do not leak.

So I’m off to get a couple of new solenoids. I have a receiver driver and an expansion valve on the shelf. A bunch of seals. I still need a compressor. Things are looking positive. Perhaps it’s because I have a low mile car.

I recall the center flap went out on my SD at about 200k. I guess it’s all about use.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Awww groan. The good news I got my center vent to work. Did it with straight troubleshooting. First checked the solenoid valve 3. It was open. Got another at PNP. Installed it. Center vent flap still doesn’t open. I pull it with my mity vac. Holds vacuum and plunger on pod moves. No airflow. Just air out the defogger vent.

So I’m scratching my head and remove the boot on the center flap from inside the glove box cave. Somebody pushed the pin out of the linkage. They didn’t wire or zip tie it open either. They just pushed out the pin and let it close. Wow. Thanks a lot PO.

Well, I managed to run a tiny screw through the hole and hook it back up. I have tiny bony hands thankfully. Grandma wanted me to be a surgeon but I became a shade tree mechanic instead.

I tried to threadlock the screw with loctite blue. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. Had I knows I would have snatched the rivet off a car at pnp today. Oh well.

All good things. Air is going to the right places now. Time to stop avoiding the Freon and get down to business on the AC.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles