I went to look at the 1982 300SD today, and it didn't follow me home. It had many strengths although it had lots of little issues, but one big thing chased me off. The first red flag went up when he pulled in with the car as we were pulling up. I personally like to start a car cold to see what's going on. It didn't have any blowby at 301K which was impressive! The tranny problem wasn't serious. Just a messed up control cable housing (broken just like my '83 was), and rerouted vacuum lines. The switch was still on the valve cover. It did shift normally after a little fiddling with the cable which eased my mind. The interesting situation was the injector/diesel knock. I noticed it as he was turning around to park it. The engine was perfectly quiet immediately upon restarting, but after 5-10 seconds, the knock would gradually fade in. It seemed to be with one cylinder at a constant rhythm at idle and while under load up to 2500RPM or so. It subsides once you take your foot off the loud pedal and coast down to a stop. The engine was a bit oily but not too bad, and the body and interior were presentable though in need of a good cleaning. The front shocks were well warn to the point where the right front clicked and rattled over bumps. I could feel it transmit through the shock as I put my hand on it and bounced the car. All of the tie rod and ball joint boots were intact, and it had good tires and brakes all the way around. The other problem was that there was something stripped in the sunroof drive mechanism. It's clearly a bottom feeder's Benz which I could live with, but I found the deal breaker. ALL OF THE AC COMPONENTS WERE REMOVED, compressor, condenser, etc under the hood!!!!! In the 1 kilobuck price bracket, I didn't expect the AC to work, but it would cost too much to buy the components and restore the AC to factory condition. I think there would have been a chance of buying the car if it was all there. It did have european headlights which was kind of cool.
Kevin in Hillsboro, OR, looking for another kilobuck Mercedes Diesel
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