The "Diseasel" - '86 300SDL - Page 6 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Diseasel300 · #76 07-02-2017, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jake12tech

High temperature for a cruise at 80mph. All my diesels never run over 85C on the highway. Check your fan clutch.

You're also not running at 108˚F ambient temp with the A/C blasting. It never runs that hot except for that one trip. As soon as the temp got back down below 105˚ outside, it dropped right back down to 85˚ where it always runs.

Fan clutch is fine btw. At RPM's these cars run doing 80, they're slipping anyway, as designed.

vwnate1 · #77 07-02-2017, 10:46 PM

i need a diagram of the 1987 300SDL's OM603 serpentine belt's routing please .

i tried search and didn't find it .

TIA,

Diseasel300 · #78 07-02-2017, 10:51 PM

The belt routing on the OM603 is truly bizzarre. Very confusing and not at all intuitive. Get it right and it works great. Get it wrong and the belt doesn't fit!

Follow this link to a posting on this forum showing the correct belt routing: http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/1111680-post1.html

vwnate1 · #79 07-03-2017, 11:04 PM

thank you ! .

Maxbumpo · #80 08-07-2017, 12:27 PM

How did you clean your gauge faces in this post?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diseasel300

With the cold weather upon us, shorter days (stupid winter time change), and since the car now sits at my house, I turned my attention to fixing some interior issues and other annoyances.

I decided to kill several birds with one stone and fix several problems all at once. I recapped the cruise control amplifier, replaced several burned out lights in the cabin and dash board, repaired the electrical switches for the windows, rebuilt the window regulators, recapped the tach, clock, speedometer, and multi-gauge, cleaned the "cancer spots" off the gauge faces, painted the gauge needles, bought a new (perfect condition) gage cluster off FleaPay, installed a new ignition switch and ignition switch tumbler, replaced the outdoor temp readout, and repaired the sunroof.

Diseasel300 · #81 08-07-2017, 07:20 PM

I replaced the gauge pod with a good used one I sourced on eBay for cheap. Came from a 300SE and the gauges went to another member of this forum.

The gauge faces got cleaned with denatured alcohol and a paintbrush. I soaked them down, waited, then gently scrubbed with the paint brush (and I mean artist's paintbrush). Took a while to clean, but took off the "cancer spots" without taking off the paint.

Diseasel300 · #82 08-20-2017, 10:23 PM

Been a while since I've updated this thread.

A/C is still blowing ice cold. I washed out the evaporator coil first part of July and it made a HUGE difference in how the A/C performs. It was adequate before, but now it's ultra-effective. Even the hottest days, I can cruise around in air conditioned splendor. So lovely!

Recently, the tappets have been getting noisy despite plenty of oil flow, so the time was right for new tappets. I put in 12 new INA tappets this evening and it's so nice to have that shaking idle gone! No more tappet rattle and the smoke under acceleration is markedly improved. Another unintended side-effect is a NOTICEABLE improvement in power. I'd not have expected that, but if the tappets were collapsing, I guess that's explainable! One of those "you have to experience it to believe it" things.

While doing the tappets, I decided to check the valve guide seals to see if they were in the correct locations. The FSM shows green as Exhaust and brown/black as Intake. Unfortunately my car has them reversed which could explain the high oil consumption. I have a thread running in the Diesel Discussion forum on the topic. It may become a fall project to correct the valve guide seals.

A project that WILL take place this fall is tuning the injection pump. I intend to raise the RPM limit to the correct 5150 RPM from the 4500RPM it currently has from the 3.5L engine. I also intend to trim the fuel back slightly to help with the coal rolling under hard acceleration.

Otherwise, the car has largely been my daily driver all summer. Surprisingly to me, it's been an extremely reliable car. I'm used to the SL that seems to have something go wrong every time I take it out!

vwnate1 · #83 08-21-2017, 10:50 AM

Thanx for the update .

It sounds like things are falling into place .

Diseasel300 · #84 09-02-2017, 11:54 PM

New valve guide seals dramatically cut the oil consumption issues and the injection pump tuning made a profound difference in the coal-rolling. No more black smoke! It will be interesting to see what the fuel consumption is like post adjustment.

I also took the time to re-seal the ALDA. A 10mm x 15mm x 2.5mm O-ring will do the shaft and a 52mm x 57mm x 2.5mm O-ring will do the peripheral seal. Having a properly working (non-leaking) ALDA makes a big difference to how the car drives. The power comes on nice and smooth instead of being gutless to 2000 RPM then suddenly having power. Such an improvement around town!

Diseasel300 · #85 09-03-2017, 04:41 PM

Minor update: Got rid of the oil smell in the cabin. Turns it was just the oil on the block burning off. Rinsed that off with some degreaser and for the first time since owning the car, no smell of exhaust or oil in the cabin. Joy of joys!

vwnate1 · #86 09-04-2017, 10:50 AM

Please go look for Rich's 'Best Degreaser On The Planet' thread ~ it's @ Sams Club and really is amazing and cheap too @ $6 (IIRC) the bottle ~ I dilute it a bit and use a hand spray bottle and a soft brush ~ my poor old grimy Coupe's engine bay and undercarriage haven't looked this nice since 1987

.

Diseasel300 · #87 09-04-2017, 11:12 AM

I commented in that thread many months ago with what my preferred degreaser is. I use a product called "Oil Eater" from Amazon. Cheap, comes in a 5 gallon pail so it lasts forever, and out of all the various products I've used over the years (including industrial products) it works the best by a wide margin. A 4:1 mix of Water

egreaser will make oil grime simply melt off the engine. Spray on, wait a few minutes, rinse off. Spotless. For a completely grime-free finish, repeat and you'll have a shiny engine with no goop leftover. I'm not that anal, so I do it once and move on with life. My biggest appreciation is that the Oil-Eater stuff doesn't discolor aluminum like the purple cleaners do. BIG PLUS in my book!

Diseasel300 · #88 09-04-2017, 06:07 PM

Irritating update - had to do some A/C work today. I noticed over the last few days that the A/C hasn't been cooling as well as it should and noticed yesterday that the Aux fan wasn't kicking on at low speeds anymore. I had the hood up today to adjust the Bowden cable and heard a hissing noise. Was the fan cycling switch on the receiver dryer. Wasn't leaking from the brass part, oh no, it was leaking from the plastic body. Behr branded part too. Took the refrigerant down to about 5 PSI and quickly swapped the switch for a spare ACM I had. Topped back up and back to cooling like a pro. I'm more than just a little irritated that the Behr part failed like it did, but at least I had a replacement part and got it back to blowing frost.

vwnate1 · #89 09-04-2017, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diseasel300

I commented in that thread many months ago with what my preferred degreaser is. I use a product called "Oil Eater" from Amazon. Cheap, comes in a 5 gallon pail so it lasts forever, and out of all the various products I've used over the years (including industrial products) it works the best by a wide margin. A 4:1 mix of Water

egreaser will make oil grime simply melt off the engine. Spray on, wait a few minutes, rinse off. Spotless. For a completely grime-free finish, repeat and you'll have a shiny engine with no goop leftover. I'm not that anal, so I do it once and move on with life. My biggest appreciation is that the Oil-Eater stuff doesn't discolor aluminum like the purple cleaners do. BIG PLUS in my book!

Thanx ! .

Diseasel300 · #90 09-10-2017, 12:14 AM

I did some fine tuning to the IP yesterday to follow up from last weekend's adjustments. Turned the 2f screw 1/3 turn CCW to give it slightly more fuel and turned 2m 1/2 turn CW to finish raising the RPM limit. The result is a car that's got some balls! It's seriously quick and still no smoke so I'm a happy camper.

Found some diesel this morning too, so I filled up and ran the fuel economy numbers. Did 135 miles in 5.8 gallons, which brings us to 23.77mpg. With all of the driving being in town or romping on back roads, that's really not bad considering I was 18-20mpg before the adjustment and driving carefully!

Today I decided to tackle the horrible rear seat. I'm not ready to shell out decent money for a new cover when I still have so many other things to do to the car first and I've been unsuccessful locating a replacement cover that people don't want a truly stupid sum of money for. Had a guy on this forum (who shall remain nameless) try to sell me a cover with a ripped bottom for $500 claiming it was a bargain. Sorry pal, I can get a NEW cover made for that without tears! No sale, Charlie.

The gaping hole in the top of the cover and the poor condition of the leather led me to try something else. I decided to get a cheap blanket and stretch it onto the seat frame to cover the existing cover. I'd lose the fold-out arm rest doing it this way, but since only the dogs ever ride back there it isn't a big deal. To date nobody who'd ridden back there has used the arm rest!

So check out the photos below to see what I started with. The leather is completely dry-rotted to the point that touching it turns it to dust. Simply no saving it so something had to be done.