'75 Merc. 240D - WMO Fueled

Hey guys... So here is how my wmo experience with the little om616 NA 240d has gone thus far.

Car is a 1975 Mercedes 240D. OM616 4cyl NA diesel backed by a 4 speed manual trans. Unknown mileage.

First off... car was $300 and drove it up on the trailer. Took some fab work to get it up and driving.. but anyways... here it sits after getting it going.



Onto the wmo...

Decided from the get go that dual tanks was a must. Decided to use the large 17g stock tank for wmo... picked up a 6 gallon bass boat tank for d2.


Greasecar solenoid under the hood with looped return.


After the first tank of wmo, I made the mistake of shutting down on wmo a couple times being lazy... coked the injectors up and figured since I have no idea how many miles are on them, I would go on and service them...



Ready to go..


Snagged a set of injector line heaters from fattywagons. Found them new on ebay for $20 shipped... guy had bought them and never used them. Score.


And installed a Dudadiesel FPHE




Still need to wire up the injector heaters... but the FPHE works nice. 5 minutes of driving and the main filter was hot to the touch.

So... Totals so far..

$300 for the car
$40 - lift pump rebuild kit
$20 - injector line heaters
$20 - boat fuel tank
$40 - FPHE
$50 - odds n' ends

Less then $500 invested... 2 tanks of wmo down... Haven't ran anymore since installing the line heaters and fphe... kinda an experiment on if it cuts down on haze/coking, etc... we'll see.

So 2 tanks in...17g per tank... 2.70 per gallon in d2. Already brought my investment down to $410.

Car should be paid for in less then 8 tanks of fuel.

More to come!

Here it is after tracking down some hubcaps and some different front seats...

That looks really good...
It's nice to work on engines that don't have a ton of computerization...
Maybe The Discovery channel will do a show about your ventures into older vehicles and using wmo....

A little envious of the purchase!!! I've been wanting one of these for a while, but the hipsters in my area love them and they usually demand a pretty penny.


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Brad S. said:

That looks really good...
It's nice to work on engines that don't have a ton of computerization...
Maybe The Discovery channel will do a show about your ventures into older vehicles and using wmo....

Click to expand...

I hope not.. lol. That would make for more competition for my oil supplies.

Price of these cars is steep around here too... I'm very surprised this one was still there when I called on it. Ended up becoming friends with the guy I bought it from... and it almost went to the scrap yard. Guy showed up before me and slipped and said he was just gonna haul it off for scrap. Seller upped the price on him and he bailed.

Its a slow car but man its fun to tinker with.

Well.. after sorting some fuel starvation issues (had to run a new supply line from the main (oil) tank to the valve under the hood...

I Finally got to drive the car a good bit today after all of the changes and I must say it made a difference. Even sitting at idle at stop lights, etc.. even for extended periods of time (I let it sit idling while I went in the gas station to grab a drink).. no haze.. no smoke... just clean/smooth idle.

Now, while under power, it still hazes a bit but it does that on diesel fuel as well but cruising down the road, there is no difference in how the car runs now between fuels. The only way you can tell is the smell.

I'm hoping to upgrade the glow plugs in the next week or 2 and see how much of a difference that makes in cold starts... I also need to adjust the fast idle knob.

Anyways, very happy with the outcome so far. Preheating the fuel certainly seems to be the ticket (even when blending).

I love it.

How soon before your destination do you switch over to diesel?

Haven't driven it in a long while.. but the same as I do with my IDI... a couple miles. With the benz, I would switch 5 miles or so out as it has a looped return system so it takes a bit longer to get diesel to the IP and injectors once switched over. If the return system was maintained, it wouldn't take long at all.

Is it for sale? Ha probably not. But I like your setup

Nah. Me and the boy are gonna go through it for his first car... Atleast that's the current plan .

Good to hear! You got my wheels turning though. I would like to find one like yours.
Nice job on it.

Did you end up advancing the timing it all?