300TD Turbo 1982 W123 (with a 1985 engine)
 

Oakland Craigslist Benz Hooptie Wagon
A 1982 wagon with a 1985 engine for $100 (plus parts)

*Updated 2014-10-23*

To do:
replace rear left door strap
right rear door strap is not good either
replace cracked blinkers and brake lights
get backuplights (or rig something up)
troubleshoot trans kickdown not working
get front license holder
get rear motor and wiper
find exhaust leak under air filter
buy missing courtesy light switch for rear door
Steering belt is close to upper oil hose, may be engine mounts or the radiator is not mounted right.
Passenger door lock needs the magic 'override' spring
Do something about the messy relationship between the crankcase and the air filter
Fix odometer
and tripometer
the tachometer almost always works, perhaps a drop of light oil would help
shifter light might not be getting power
buy upper screw for passenger armrest
buy screws for glovebox internal latch
buy tire chains
get a cross reference of MB lubricants and modern equivalents
buy a hood pad, and hood springs or bumpers or whatever is supposed to be there
fix AC? Remove all the AC stuff?
Rig up third row seatbelts
Get a front wiper fluid reservoir
Install aux battery, 12vdc generator, air compressor, sound system
tow hitch
trailer
trailer lights
wooden stake roof rack


Oct 23 It's been pouring. Although the car has taken on a bit of water it's much less than before. Snaking al the drains may have helped. I replaced the front left turn/running lamp because the running filament was broken. But when I replaced it the turn filament stopped working! I disassembled the lamp holder and "fluffed" the three conductors and now it's fine. Oiled the hood hinges, door hinges and all the locks with sewing machine oil. I washed the engine with a lot of cold water a few days back and now it's lightly rusted. Thinking about using ospho.

Oct 22 Checked glowplugs. All plugs resistance is good and all getting DC from the controller. Snaked rear sunroof drains with rigid vacuum hose and they do drain.

Oct 21 Cleaned lots of rich compost out of the engine bay drains. Front sunroof drains work, rear ones maybe not. Cabin leaks through left side sunroof. Found the missing $25 rod that connects the driver door lock to the master vacuum actuator (I previously made one out of an Oakland street sweeper bristle!)

Oct 1-20 (light massage)
-Fixed broken driver door lock.
-Replaced missing connection to master vacuum actuator (with a street sweeper bristle bent to Mercedes spec!)
-Installed vacuum parts for trans: orifice, damper, vacuum(!).
-Deleted egr+ac vacuum lines.
-Replaced broken interior door handles and knobs.
-Replaced various bulbs inside and out.
-Hooked up the stock speakers which were disconnected at the fader.
-Added almost a quart of transmission fluid!
-And a half quart of sls fluid.
-Found out my engine is a 1985 (in a 1982 car).
-Replaced both headlights.
-Cleaned crud off the tank sensor. Broke the magic wire. Resoldered it, reinstalled it. Seems to work.
-Bought jackstands, wheel chocks, and a jack

After giving proper vacuum to the transmission, the car seems to shift great!! I'm guessing the EGR delete is helping too. I haven't taken it more than a few miles though.


Oct 1 (jogging)
Drove it from Oakland to HQ (about 500 miles). I thought I did 80 most of the time, but an electronic speed check showed my speedometer to be 5 MPH high, so I maybe just cruised at 75. Solid. Shifted brutally hard and at annoying times (classic vacuum issues). Got approx 24 miles/gallon. Either didn't burn any oil or the seller overfilled it and it burned down to the right level by the time I got home. Cold idle is pretty nasty. Could be a bit of air. Or it could just be old. Blowby is medium.


Sept 26 (initiation)
Bought & Registered in Oakland off of "the Benz guy". He got it off of "some other Benz guy" so it comes with no history. Got it for $100 and the registration was only $5!
For the next few days, the seller:
adjusted valves
replaced chain tensioner
replaced brakepads
changed oil & filter
replaced oil filler cap
adjusted shift cable position
installed 3rd row seat from his own car(!!!)
adjusted idle

Welcome...
 

Looks like you got a nice project ...and a good start on it. Keep us updated.

Some pictures
 

Here are some pictures!

More Pix
 

Has a radiator from a 1982 126 (? that's what it says).
A lack of motor shocks :-/

The lack of engine shocks is probably related to that

SOMEONE STUCK A 1985 ENGINE IN MY 1982!

and didn't even tell me.

Thanks vstech for pointing that out.

The engine could also be a 1984 Cali. If you can get the engine number located behind the oil filter housing at the block, I can let you know the year of the motor.

Thanks DeliveryValve. The engine number is 617 952 12 089 490. How do you look that up?

The engine is a 1985. First installed in a car that was manufactured in 10/84.

I know this info from my own personal research on w123 turbo vehicles.

I never had engine shocks in mine, there was some vibration but not enough to make me worry. Felt closer to a regular car than a super luxury car, but oh well.

Updated oringinal post 10/23.

I replaced the bulb in the trans shifter indicator.
I took off the air filter to explore the exhaust leak. It turns out there is no down tube for the oil, connecting the air filter to the oil pan. Instead, there is a hole in the bottom of the air filter housing. The blowby gasses were puffing out the bottom. My car has a 1985 engine with a 1982 air filter. I hear the '85 engines routed the oil drain from the air filter to a different location, but I do not know where (into the turbo?). I may just attach a few feet of clear hose to the oil drain on the air filter, and put a stopper on the end. If/when it fills with oil, I can unstopper it and drain it out.
I also noticed that the U tube that connects the air box to the turbo is missing one of its rings! Ordered it and also a missing filter housing mount.
The primary filter has little tiny bubbles flowing into it which may explain the missing at startup. I'll clean the tank strainer, replace the primary filter and see if I'm still sucking air.
Got Liqui-Moli and new fuel filters and will do a purge after fixing the above.
Ordered Alumilite products for casting parts. I'm going to start by casting new backup lights and then do the rear stop/turn lights.

Replaced both rear door straps.

Replaced both fuel filters. Replaced soft fuel lines on both sides of primary filter. Idle seems much smoother. I was going to pull the tank strainer but then I noticed it requires emptying the tank, so not today.

Ran it on a can of Liqui-Moli. An impressive filth cloud came out at first. I ran out of fuel on the highway :-) There was no noticeable residue left in the can.

Starting to plan a catch can for the blowby.

Car seems not to leak rain inside anymore, hooray!

The HoopTD is getting better every day.

Thanks forum!

It's been awhile, but I still have the car and it's been my daily driver since I got it.
-4 new tires
-replaced transmission with a used, low milage one because the front seal was leaking pretty badly
-replaced the engine with a very low milage one because compression was low and it ran very poorly when it was cold (assuming I could get it to start at all)
-installed engine shocks with the new engine since my car didn't have any
-replaced SLS high and low hoses after springing a leak and spraying SLS fluid all over my engine bay while on a 2000 mile road trip
-rebuilt SLS pump after running it dry (see above)
-rebuilt power steering pump because it leaked
-replaced radiator because it weeped at the top
-replaced both rear axles (or whatever they're called) as the boots had torn, all the precious grease had washed out, and they made horrible klunk-klunk-klunk sounds when I drove.
-replaced both rear brake calipers after one siezed
-installed "speed bleeders" in all 4 brake calipers

Odometer fixed!
 

Today I fixed the odometer. I pulled the instrument cluster and removed the speedometer/odometer. I removed the shaft for the odometer and roughed p the shaft where it contacts the first gear. Then I reassembled it and shoved a shim near the first gear. Then I used a needle to put a little blue loctite on the shaft.
Since my new engine was rebuilt ~60000 miles ago, I reset the odometer to 60000. It took some fiddling to get the gears all lined up correctly but it wasn't too bad. I have a few miles on the car and it still works.

While I was in there, I replaced the dash lights with red LED lights. Have to wait until dark to see if they work.

Now the seatbelt light flashes all the time though, but I'll open a separate thread about it if I can't find a solution.

The LED lights fried my circuit board. I didn't notice that the LED lights are not quite identical to the OEM lights and cause a short. I repaired a three visibly fried traces on the board and everything worked except that the turn signal bulbs were both lit anytime I had the running lights on. They'd blink when the turn signals blinked so they only problem seemed to be that they annoyed me.
I didn't feel like soldering the circuit board anymore so I bought a used one.
The used one has a few differences from the old one (which quite possibly isn't the stock 1982 cluster anyway).
The new one has the multi-pin connector in a different location. It's above the oil line rather than below.
The new one lacks the small black box (which I *think* is a buzzer).
The new one has the temp in F rather than C, and has the pressure in PSI rather than whatever the metric units were. I sort of prefer the SAE units since I live in the US.
I was concerned that I might lose the buzzer that happens when headlights-are-on-while-car-is-off-and-door-is-open but all the buzzers still work fine.

In other news, I replaced all my fuses as I noticed that they appeared to be at least 100 years old.

I noticed a small leak from my low-side steering pump hose and replacing the clamp may have fixed it. I'll replace the hose if it gives me any more trouble, as it's no spring chicken.

I was leaking a little oil from my fill cap. A new seal seems to have fixed that.

I ordered a few dozen sets of clips for the chrome door trim. Two fell off and another is halfway off.

I ordered new switches for the front windows as the passenger switch stopped working.

I found aftermarket tail lights for ~$50 each including shipping from some former USSR country, so I'm probably going to get them. Interestingly, the turn signals on them are clear. Haven't seen that before. I'll probably get clear front turn signals to match.