>Conrad, your engine seems to be in EXCELLENT condition!
I've been pretty fortunate with this poor little 300D. The first two owners took incredibly good care of this car, from what I can see--and drove the majority of its miles in Texas and then Florida. Then, however, one the kids of the second owner took the car to college.... I got the car for a song because it had a snapped radiator neck and was overheating. Also, living outside in Florida near the ocean (as opposed to what I think had been a previous garage-based existence) started taking a toll on both the interior and exterior, so the car was looking affirmatively shabby until I used the better part of a bottle of polish to buff out the paint.
Today, the car has all kinds of niggling projects that I need to address if I ever get free time, and the a/c doesn't work (of course), but the engine starts and runs really well (the new timing chain kit a friend and I put in didn't hurt, either, and I'm hoping to rebuild the injectors this summer, as the engine has started to lope a bit at idle), and the transmission shifts far better than it should at the mileage it's at. I wonder whether it was rebuilt at some point before the car was passed to the neglectful immediate former owner....
--Conrad
