Hi everyone, thanks to the comments on my last post and some digging through various forums, I've solved my low power issue on my 85 300SD. It's now making good power but I have a very minor issue to solve. When I push the pedal all the way down, my throttle linkage still has about a quarter of an inch of travel left. I'm assuming this is down to an issue with the linkage attached to the firewall, I've adjusted the linkages on the valve cover so that I can actuate it through its full travel with no binding or play. I tried unscrewing the ball socket at the end of the linkage that comes up from the bottom of the firewall but it unthreads completely before raising up the socket enough to fully push the ball it's attached to. I've attached a picture of roughly the amount of travel I have, and I can take some more pictures tomorrow.

Nothing wrong was stopping there. If full throttle is reached, trans cable is fully pulled with out being to tight,trans shifts at proper time,no worries.
I could set to stop at end but pedal height would fatigue foot before long.
Have driven over a million miles like this, and on several cars with no problems.

The amount of travel in the slot doesn't matter as long as the linkage on the side of the pump reaches full stop.


The only reason for the slot is to enable the stop lever to move to the stop position, otherwise the cruise control actuator would prevent it from being pushed. If you delete cruise, you can attach the pump linkage directly to the arm with 240D parts to eliminate throttle slack.

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