Mercedes 240D

I had one with a 5-cylinder diesel was an awesome car. Keep an eye on the cooler lines mine ruptured and that's what killed it. About 380,000 miles on mine.
 
Originally Posted by wings&wheels
One other thought. I cant tell from the pics, but if it has its sealed beam headlights, replace them with quality "E Codes"; European spec Hella or Cibie H4's (avoid the knock off's). You will be very happy with the difference at night. Enjoy the car.


Bang for the buck, the "Autopal" e-codes I got from ebay were great! Glass lenses, good reflectors. I put them in both my w123 and my firebird. You'll love the spread and cutoff vs sealed beams.
 
I had a couple of 123 240Ds and really liked them.
Great ride and handling and very solid brake pedal feel along with a nice engine sound at highway speeds. The loose steering is partly by design, since most of us have grown used to rack and pinion while this car has recirculating ball, which provides for better isolation from road irregularities since it isn't reversible.
This is an old car, but these diesels are very simple and about the only problem you're likely to have will involve the vacuum tubing to the door locks.
Be sure to acquaint yourself with the hand pump and fuel system bleeding procedure before changing the fuel filters and wear clothing you're willing to discard, since the fuel smell will not come out in the wash. The oil filter is just a big cartridge and oil changes are really easy if a little stinky.
A 15W-40 grade oil should work well.
Also, eljefino is right in that recorded mileage may be less than actual. Older Merced cars are known to sometimes record mileage only when they feel like it, but the W115 and the W123 are prone to broken speedo cables (an easy thing to replace) as well as broken odometers, also not hard to swap out and can be sent off for repair. You could add 100K of actual use to this little engine and it really wouldn't matter anyway. At less than 30 bhp/liter, it doesn't make enough power to hurt itself.
The deck lid is the only tinny sounding thing on the car. I suspect that you'll find that you have more than surface rust there and you'll discover clogged drain holes. I'd personally remove the trim and find out. Don't worry about breaking the trim clips or even the trim. Any Mercedes dealer can order these for you for reasonable money.
 
Originally Posted by CharlotteB
Is some surface rust really that concerning?

Up here, if it was, we wouldn't be able to drive. At all. Kinda odd, your rust; makes me wonder if it took a hit and the paint quality around the hood just wasn't the best.

Quote

I will definitely be taking it to school with me. I will be like one of the rich kids, driving a Benz.

Ha! Wild guess says that few would appreciate the car like you will. At least as a manual you'll find very few want to borrow it.
 
Originally Posted by eljefino
I had a couple of these... a 240D just like yours and a 300D with 2x the hp!

Get yourself a valve cover gasket-- the old one will be dry and crunchy. Adjust the valves. You'll need 2x 14mm wrenches, one probably ground a little thinner on the open end. Lots of power and smoothness is usually found by doing this. When the VC is off, put a wrench on the crank and check for timing chain slop. Changing both fuel filters is often-required maintenance. The oil filter is a treat, just wait until you see this contraption. I ran Mag-1 5w40 and the turbo was faster to spool up vs 15w40 but still got 1.5 Bar of pressure at hot idle. You have no turbo, of course, but could still find use in the premium oil if you choose.

That battery looks a little small, so when its replacement comes check to see what the correct one is.

The odometers break all the time on these-- there's a chance if you run a Carfax, you'll cry. But the condition of the car is what matters.

The brakes were a hot mess for me. 240d had a sticky pad that was mechanically hung up on its pins due to rust. Just had to file down the high spots. 300d had a bad master cylinder that wouldn't let fluid back up, so it was dragging the brakes slightly. Cooked both front calipers. Hoses were $4 on rock auto last time I checked, a good maintenance item. When they fail, they tend to boil fluid and you lose pedal.

My seat had a broken spring, so I stuffed a pool noodle in there.

The power window switches are rebuildable at home so you can clean the contacts. Just watch the springs and bb's inside-- they fly off. In a pinch you can swap driver and passenger sides, like to get a window up that's stuck down in the rain. Edit, you have crank windows. Sweet!

The steering box will be loose-- they all are-- they tighten by turning the big bolt on the box counter-intuitively counter-clockwise. There is only a limited amount of CCW available before you're just grinding the box to dust inside-- but it'll feel tighter then!


Sweet! What year 300D did you have? And thanks for the tips- good to hear stuff from a previous owner.

Do you know of a good manual where I can find details like valve lash, torque specs, etc? Does Chilton or Haynes have one? I could check out battery info in there too. I like to baseline all the fluids and make sure everything mechanical is properly adjusted on new [used] vehicles before I start driving them. And I've seen the Benz canister oil filters before, on a 300E I used to have.

I haven't looked up the Carfax yet, lol. I didn't know I should be wary of the odometer reading! But mileage doesn't bother me. I think it's cool to have a high mileage car that you still love and take care of. My dad has a '93 Civic that went over 430k, and I need to beat that.

I'm super glad my windows are manual. And the seats! I HATE fiddling with power features. I'd rather rebuild an entire engine than chase wires.

My brakes seem to be working great, thankfully. And you're right, the steering is a bit sloppy. But it feels like there might be an alignment issue, so I don't know if it's the box. As long as it goes straight in my lane and doesn't wear the tires, I don't mind.
 
Will euro-spec headlights for any W123 Benz fit on my car? It does have sealed glass ones on it now, and one of them has condensation in it.

Originally Posted by fdcg27
This is an old car, but these diesels are very simple and about the only problem you're likely to have will involve the vacuum tubing to the door locks.

Be sure to acquaint yourself with the hand pump and fuel system bleeding procedure before changing the fuel filters and wear clothing you're willing to discard, since the fuel smell will not come out in the wash. The oil filter is just a big cartridge and oil changes are really easy if a little stinky.

Funny you mention the door locks; they are really slow! I bet the lines need replaced.

The rubber fuel lines need replaced too, because they look a little swelled. I also need to drop the tank and clean it because there is some algae stuff in there. Not good! And I looked at the little primer pump thing, and it leaks whenever I touch with it (but I don't really know how it's supposed to work).

Originally Posted by supton
Wild guess says that few would appreciate the car like you will. At least as a manual you'll find very few want to borrow it.

Lol, so true. Some of the engineering guys with old manual F150s will like it, but everyone in my finance and law classes will just see an old car.
 
There are three styles of headlamps:

US spec sealed beams, sold new at the dealer in 1981.
German spec euro bulbs, look great, sold in europe in 1981.
E spec round bulbs, that retrofit the sealed beams, and are almost as good light-wise, but still nerdy looking.

I found the valve lash specs online, and you can too. One side was .004" and the other .011" IIRC. I drew out a piece of paper with the specs and which was which and I X-ed the valves as I did them, bumping the starter a few times to get them all.
 
The lines that look a little swelled are the return lines.
Replace them and they should be made of a braided covering hose.
If you have really bad vacuum leaks then you won't be able to shut the engine down using the key switch since it depends upon a vacuum solenoid to pull the rack out and stop the engine so you'd have to lift the hood and use the mechanical emergency stop.
This is a neat old car that I would enjoy having myself.
You sound as though you have the mechanical adeptness and willingness to learn and get your hands dirty that will make your ownership experience a pleasant one.
Stay in touch and let us know how it goes.
 
I have a 83 300D Turbo, the 240D is a solid car a little slower then the 5 cylinder but less complex and easier to maintain. A common issue with the W123's is water getting into the cabin and rusting the floor away. Pull up the carpet in the front and back to see what shape your floor is in. Check that the cowl and sunroof drains aren't plugged up and leaking water into the car.

Mercedes has put the W123 factory service manual CD's online for everybody to use:

https://www.startekinfo.com/StarTek/outside/12265/?requestedDocId=12265

The cruise control problem is very common, most common repair is to replace a few capacitors on the cruise control amplifier board or just replace the whole amplifier.
 
I'll look into new headlights. I like the round eyed look
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The braided return lines on the injectors look fine, it's the rubber hoses down by the injection pump area that look bad. I'll probably wait till I drop the tank to replace them though.

Thanks for the MB manual source! I am leery of unofficial online repair guides.

For the next few days I'm not going to be doing a whole lot to this car; it's the small engine time of the year and I have riding mowers and generators piling up. But I'll keep y'all updated!
 
Congratulations. Pretty decent condition. And a manual transmission, too! That's the sort of vehicle that you keep just to see how many miles you can get out of it.

One thing about these older cars is how much easier it is to see what's going on under the hood. You can concentrate on the mechanical side of things without all the electronics and emissions stuff getting in the way.
 
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