My Mercedes fun!

[SparkandFire]

So, the 85' 300D is on the road again! In between a company trip to Wisconsin, the wife being in the hospital for a week, and a buggled up friendship, this damn thing finally got finished. For those who don't know what I am talking about, this is the car I bought in southern California, drove 10 miles, and blew the engine up. Turns out water cooled engines actually need water!

The engine I got from The Warden went in pretty smooth and runs GREAT! There were some obvious differences between the mounting of the '79 engine to the ' 85 tranny, and the exhaust was totally different. The casting on the engine where it mounts to the bellhousing was much thinner on the '79 engine I got, so I reused my old way too long bolts with a crapload of washers for shims... I need to replace those with shorter bolts. I opted to not remove the engine to bellhousing adapter (to keep from buying more torque-to-yield flywheel bolts) so my tachometer may never work again! The turbo is in a different location, so I made a temporary adapter for the downpipe to exhaust pipe until I get it to the exhaust shop for a permanent repair.

I've spent the past few days pulling my remaining hair out over the vacuum system until I found the nut holding the main vacuum line to the pump was never tightened down... But, she runs and drives great now!!!

As I mentioned before, I couldn't have got this thing going again without the help from oilburners Towcat and The Warden, thanks for all the help guys!!

 

[The Warden]

Congratulations great to hear that she's finally on the road!!

That's the first I've heard about the bellhousing adapter being thinner on the earlier cars than on the later cars. Did you by chance take any pics? Maybe that was an '85-only thing? Shame you can't get the tach to work...OTOH, just watch the dots on the speedo to get an idea of what the max shift points are.

Can't wait to see the finished product

 

[runaway!]

I'm sorry about Wisconsin, we don't like being here either - hence the "beer problem"

I couldn't resist, I'll go back across the street and watch the forum some more.

I certainly hope everything is ok with your wife!

 

[SparkandFire]

I'm sorry about Wisconsin, we don't like being here either - hence the "beer problem"

I couldn't resist, I'll go back across the street and watch the forum some more.

I certainly hope everything is ok with your wife!

Thanks for the kind words! Actually, I thought it was quite nice there! I was in New Richmond, and it was a nice town! I did notice the "beer problem" though... I enjoyed the "Leinenkugels" or "leine's" while I was there!

 

[runaway!]

Thanks for the kind words! Actually, I thought it was quite nice there! I was in New Richmond, and it was a nice town! I did notice the "beer problem" though... I enjoyed the "Leinenkugels" or "leine's" while I was there!

Oh yes, love the Leinie...

New Richmond, been in that area before. You came at the right time of the year, and we've been unseasonably warm. Looking outside, that just came to an end... Possible snow showers tomorrow

 

[SparkandFire]

I drank my weight in "special dark" leinies while I was there, too bad you cant get that stuff out here! We have all these small "craft" breweries that do a whole lot of unfilter wheat beer, which is ok sometimes... But that special dark stuff is a whole different animal!

 

[SparkandFire]

Congratulations great to hear that she's finally on the road!!

That's the first I've heard about the bellhousing adapter being thinner on the earlier cars than on the later cars. Did you by chance take any pics? Maybe that was an '85-only thing? Shame you can't get the tach to work...OTOH, just watch the dots on the speedo to get an idea of what the max shift points are.

Can't wait to see the finished product

Oh man, I got pictures! I took many pictures assuming they would help me put it all back together again, they helped with the throttle linkage at least!

I am actually thinking about switching back to the old style tach setup (like yours, that uses the sensor off the front of the crank) One of my many, many projects!!!

 

[runaway!]

I drank my weight in "special dark" leinies while I was there, too bad you cant get that stuff out here! We have all these small "craft" breweries that do a whole lot of unfilter wheat beer, which is ok sometimes... But that special dark stuff is a whole different animal!

Just got updated to snow today

I used to work (for beer) at a craft brewery my father operated, closed a few years ago. Certainly learned to appreciate a good beer due to the amount of back breaking labor involved. We didn't filter, but we didn't exactly allow for a beer to be chewy either. It is actually hard to get a good heavy beer well filtered, more settling involved than filtering.

Haven't had the special dark, but the creamy dark is also excellent.