Hello everyone,

Recently acquired a 1982 300d with mint interior and exterior. Bought it off an older gentleman that said his father wanted to be buried in it. After looking it over I agreed to $3000 just because I was ready for another project car. On the cold start I noticed that there was an obvious knock/tick to the motor. I asked him and he said his mechanic stated it was probably a “injector”. Assuming that to be true I just finished replacing all the fuel lines, injector nozzles, fuel filters and well as adding a can of diesel purge to the tank and filling the filter with it.

This is what it sounds like exactly:


https://youtu.be/65sxorr1Zp8?si=MTWYWJn98Csw9lSJ

After all that I gave her a start up and an Italian tune up and the noise is still present. So then I thought maybe the valve clearances were out of spec so I adjusted them accordingly. I’m not the best with valve adjustment so I may have left one too tight or loose. But I was rather confident with the procedure.

So I guess my next step would be removing the vaccum pump and starting the vehicle with it removed to rule out that as a culprit. I got a long flathead and noticed there was some noise coming from the pump. Anyway just wanted to see if anyone has experienced this before as most answers are immediately “rod knock”. I wasn’t planning on doing another engine swap this year so hoping someone has some insight. Thanks!