Oppertunity to buy a MB 300D non turbo

[stumiister]

I have a friend that wants to sell me his early to mid '90's 300D non turbo, what kind of fuel milage do you see with it ?
did they come with 4spd trannies?
How simple are the engines to work on?, this particular 300D has a 5 cylinder engine in it.
He has told me that the GPs dont work but not sure of anything else not working.

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

If it were a mid 80s model I could tell you all about it, but I am not very familiar with the newer ones. Try here:
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/index.php

 

[The Warden]

How much does he want for the car, and what overall condition is the car in? And, how certain are you that it's naturally aspirated? M-B had a 2.5l turbo 5 cylinder between '90 and '93, and a 3.0l naturally aspirated 6 cylinder between '95 and '97...although it could also be a gray-market car.

Unless the car's thrashed and/or he didn't pay much attention to maintenance or he's asking too much, I would go for it...these are great cars This is certain to be an aluminum-head engine, FYI...so, if there are overheating issues, run away unless you're prepared to replace a potentially warped cylinder head...

 

[stumiister]

Warden,
Im sure the guy Im buying the car from is the orginal owner, I will be paying about $5200 for it. I have seen the car a few times and looked under the hood a few times, the guy Im buying the car from is a truck driver for the company I work at, and Im the head technaican for the company.
When I did look under the hood I didnt see the turbo unless it was remote mounted downstream from the exhaust manifold.
The owner told me the only thing he has done other than regular maintance is replace the power steering pump and it is possible it may need GP's the owner had told me one is bad.
Other than that I think the car is in good order.

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

The older 300Ds kick butt. Not uncommon to see them around here with 300K+ miles on them. The older ones (mid 80s) are brute force simple and sip fuel (mid to high 20s).

Don't know much about the newer ones, but IMHO MB built some great stuff through the late 90s.

 

[stumiister]

Well I got its a '93 E 300 with a 6cyl na diesel about 200k on the clock.
There a few items that need work but the engine, tranny are good and it runs good, but the am/fm antenna needs replacing, there is an issue with the lights, I think the GP's need work and there might be other items that need work.

 

[stumiister]

I noticed this morning after I had the car running the gp light came for about a minute, then went out, but when I first turned the key no light would this be a GP controller gone bad?

 

[The Warden]

I noticed this morning after I had the car running the gp light came for about a minute, then went out, but when I first turned the key no light would this be a GP controller gone bad?

Do you know if the glow plugs themselves came on? Easiest way to tell is to turn the dome light on before turning the key to "ON"...see if the dome light goes dim, then back to bright after maybe 10 or 15 seconds. If it did, the plugs cycled; if not, they didn't.

Beyond that, the controllers on these cars don't regularly go bad, so I would check the plugs themselves first...also, if the newer cars are anything like the older cars, there's a fuse in the GP controller that looks like this:

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With that said, I suspect that the plugs are at least partially working...in my experience at least the OM617 is almost impossible to start cold without working GP's or ether...

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

In my 617 the glow plug light failed to come on when the third glow plug (it worked ok with only two burned out plugs) burned out. As soon as I replaced the glow plugs the light started working fine. As the warden says the controllers don't often go bad in these.

 

[stumiister]

Thanks for the info fellas
How do I go about getting to the plugs to replace them?
What brand is recomended for tis car?

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

I use bosch which is OE. I buy alot of mb parts at https://www.autohausaz.com/index.html.
FYI my three bad plugs all tested good when I ohmed them out.

 

[The Warden]

Seconded Shadetreemechanic's recommendation for AutohausAZ. I've purchased from them a number of times; good quality at decent prices. I've only had to do plugs on these cars a couple of times (they don't fail as often as on our IDI's), and Bosch works very well The GP's on these cars are actual 12 volt glow plugs, so you don't have the problems with swelling tips like we get on the 6 volt plugs our IDI's use. For that matter, I don't recall ever hearing of a swelled tip on an M-B GP, although I have had a couple where the nut that holds the ring terminal in place seizes up and ends up taking the guts of the GP out with it. Doesn't affect getting the plug itself out of the block, but it makes getting the electrical ring terminal off exciting...

Unfortunately, I've never done a GP job (or any other job) on the OM606, so I can't say for sure how to go about getting to them...

 

[stumiister]

Warden I read a tech article on how to do the job but I think the article was for the TD model my engine is NA so I assume that the job is same but without having to deal with the CAC pipes, and less stuff in the way.