Okayyyy........
About a month ago, I was coming off the I-25 ramp at Orchard St. when it became clear I no longer had power brakes. Pulling in front of my house and turning the key to the "OFF" position failed to stop the engine. SO, obviously, I, too, now had a failed vacuum pump.
I spent the next three weeks with no power brakes, harsh shifting and having to pop the hood to shut down the engine every time I stopped somewheres. Finally, I was able to get some time to remove the seven screws holding the pump cover off in the hopes I had a mere one-way valve failure, or just one that got clogged up with some sort of spew (this has happened before on this car). No such luck this time. Right in the middle of the pump piston was a raggedly-edge hole, about the size of a nickel. The vacuum pump on MY SD grenaded itself, like Brian's, BUT, not in a way that endangered the engine. How do these things happen?!
I buttoned it back up and checked the websites of the local yards. Eventually, a suitable donor car showed up at the Littleton U-Pull (which is actually in Louviers, but, whatever), and I was able to scrounge the pump, as well as the glow plug timer and lift pump for the oft-delayed but not abandoned Jeep Merceneer diesel project. (The donor car, I am sad to say, was the same one that sat for a year with expired plates in my neighbor's driveway before disappearing from there earlier this summer. An '83 300D, it was that medium/dark-green metallic with palomino interior, good condition, overall, but needed paint and the right rear window raised up. The sticker on the window indicated it had been donated. I KNEW I should have knocked on his door and offered him, I dunno, $300, $500 for it. Whatever, it would undoubtedly be far more than the tax write-off he got for the donation. Still kicking myself....)
With the new pump on, the old gal is back running, and stopping, like it should. Next up; getting the left rear axle replaced. But, that's gonna hafta wait while I recover from MY motorcycle "accident"....
Mark in Centennial, CO
1979 300SD W116 340,000 miles
On September 15, 2017 at 8:10 AM "bstromsoe@yahoo.com [diesel_mercedes]" <diesel_mercedes@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
What is going on? My Yahoo says there has been no activity in this group for the past 7 days. Someone must be doing something out there.
Brian in Graham WA
with Martha, a 1983 w123 300d
