what 80's mercedes turbo diesel make would you recomend?

Question

i am thinking of getting an 82' 300 turbo, and converting it to bio. i'm looking for some feedback as to what commonly gose wrong w/ these. what's the best motor, and what to look at when shopping one (expencive things to replace) do they have an air suspention, and dose it go bad like a range rover? thanks for your help

Answer 1

An 82 Merc Diesel is about the most robust car ever made, it's nothing like a Land Rover. Weak points: none. It's just a question of how many hundreds of thousands of miles, and what has worn. Engines and transmissions are expensive, and rust repairs can be surprisingly difficult, but everything else is workable.

A quick check for the health of the motor is to unplug the crankcase recirculation hose, and press your thumb down to seal the valve cover grommet (it's messy, wear a glove). If the motor stalls in less than 8 seconds, the rings are going.

The station wagons have self leveling hydraulic suspensions (often converted to standard), sedans have regular suspensions.

Depending on how ambitious you are, you can run a mix of 25% veggie oil and Diesel unless the weather is very cold. If you want to run straight veggie oil, you need to install a heated tank and an electrical fuel valve. The car has to start and warm up with Diesel, and you have to run Diesel for a minute before you turn it off. So you have to think about what you're doing. If you're going to run biodiesel, there are no mods required.

Answer 2

Old turbocharged cars are generally bad news, whether petrol/gasoline or Diesel. Tubros don't last as long as engines. But if you must the 70s and 80 MBs are probably the best bets. You can't run straight vegetable oil in a direct injection engine as carbon collects about the piston rings and causes "severe engine damage" after 700 - 1200 hours of operation, longer I expect if you dilute it with petro-Diesel fuel. I don't know whether the 300 is direct or indirect injection.

Answer 3

It wan't the two. The Mercs of that era have been frequently happening via engine sort, physique sort, and displacement. A 300D could be a midrange sedan, 5 cylinder 3L diesel. The "enormous sedan" for the year may be the 300SD, on a similar time as the wagon may be the 300TD. The small automobile in that era became into the 190D, which relatively had a 2.2L 4 cylinder diesel.

Answer 4

all benz diesels are good you cant go wrong as for the bio there is know conversion per-say you just need to replace some fuel lines and the fuel filters more often.