My 1979 300SD

[300SDude]

We bought this Mercedes 300SD in August 2010. The guy I bought it from had it for close to 20 years, and he had purchased it from his boss prior to that. We paid him $500 for the car. We purchased this car because we wanted a car that we could convert to run on WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) like our '94 Suburban does. This vehicle is also considered a collector's vehicle and has a license plate to declare so. We never have to buy tags or have it inspected again.

I have always been kind of a car nut, and have always wanted a Mercedes, but could never really afford one. This one, I could afford, lol. I was 8 years old when this car was new. It was actually in pretty good condition for the price.


We live on 40 acres in the mountains, and the WVO Suburban we have is 4 wheel drive, so we wouldn't really drive this car in the winter. I had my mechanics keep it through the winter and work on putting the veggie system I purchased from Greasecar for this model Mercedes.

This is the 12 gallon veggie oil tank that is in the trunk.



There are coolant lines that run from the radiator to the tank to heat the oil. (It has to be at least 105 degrees F. before you can turn it on). The "fuel" lines run through the center of the coolant lines to keep the oil warm up to the filter and the diesel/veggie oil splitter. There is a fuel gauge and a rocker switch mounted where the ashtray goes inside the car to switch between diesel and veggie oil. It gets the same mileage as diesel, but it smells like french fries coming out of the exhaust, lol.


After we got it back from the mechanics (who also did a number of other things while it was there......new stuff on the driveline and new bushings for most of the body, and so on) it went to the upholsterer's for a month. The back seat was completely unusable.

Before:




After:



They also recovered the rear deck in the back window:


Next it went into the paint shop to be painted Tourmaline Blue/Green:


I do have the missing strip that goes before the door window, I just have to re-install it on. One of the clips that hold it on was broke, so I took the whole thing off before I lost it. Luckily, the paint guys found it in the trunk and painted it to match the car as well.


Right now I am installing a dash overlay to cover up the 3 major cracks that were in the original. I also installed a new heat cover on the bottom of the hood, since the old one was missing, and you could tell where it had baked the original paint off.

Thanks to everyone on this forum for all their help! It is greatly appreciated.

300SDude (Donnie)
Hunters, WA.

[1980sdga]

Nice car!  It's cool that you're doing the WVO, that's what made me look at the 116's. Well, that and I have always admired the looks of the 116's.  I mean, VW TDI, or a Volvo... that's just lame  For now I'm happy just working on it and driving it!

The interior looks great! I was hoping you had the dash cover on. While I like the character of the MB-TEX interior it's friggin' hot in the summer. Real practical choice there, your azz will thank you 

And good job with the paint by doing the jambs. It makes ALL the difference when changing color! 

I'm interested in the veg oil setup. I already have an extra tank in one of my cars so that's a start. I'm guessing it's a system where you start it on diesel and then change to oil and then purge with diesel before shutting down? I also imagine you have a tank heater as well as the water heat exchanger?

Here in Ga. a roof rack with a thin, flat tank would do it    although a leak could make an oil pressure gauge blowout look like a minor problem 

Keep up the good work!

[Squiggle Dog]

Those seats give the interior a more European appearance. It looks like the material fits well and they don't look over-padded as some shops will do. It would be interesting to have them do the door inserts in the same material like the Euro-spec cars with velour have.

I often wonder if I will ever be able to afford to get a decent paint job on my car. With the debt that I have, low income, and upcoming unemployment, it doesn't look like it's happening any time soon. Maybe I should just get a gallon of paint, thin it down, the roll it on with a paint roller, color sanding between coats. I've seen people get decent results from this with a total cost of about $50. The good thing is you can do one section at a time and not worry about overspray on other parts. Still, I'd love to have a professional paint job one day so my car can look like yours.

[1980sdga]

I'm sure you've seen this Squig:

http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

You're a clever guy, I'm sure you could do it!

[Squiggle Dog]

I'm sure you've seen this Squig:

http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

You're a clever guy, I'm sure you could do it!

Yep, gonna do it! It can't look any worse than it does now. Right now it's really embarrassing and looking at my car, people don't think I care about it. Look for some posts on the work in progress in a month or two. It should get me by for a couple of years or more and at least I'll have the two-tone paint scheme I've been wanting.

[300SDude]

Nice car!  It's cool that you're doing the WVO, that's what made me look at the 116's. Well, that and I have always admired the looks of the 116's.  I mean, VW TDI, or a Volvo... that's just lame  For now I'm happy just working on it and driving it!

The interior looks great! I was hoping you had the dash cover on. While I like the character of the MB-TEX interior it's friggin' hot in the summer. Real practical choice there, your azz will thank you 

And good job with the paint by doing the jambs. It makes ALL the difference when changing color! 

I'm interested in the veg oil setup. I already have an extra tank in one of my cars so that's a start. I'm guessing it's a system where you start it on diesel and then change to oil and then purge with diesel before shutting down? I also imagine you have a tank heater as well as the water heat exchanger?

Here in Ga. a roof rack with a thin, flat tank would do it    although a leak could make an oil pressure gauge blowout look like a minor problem 

Keep up the good work!

Yes, you do have to start it on diesel. When you know you are going to reach your destination, you flip the rocker switch over to purge for 2 1/2 minutes, then back to the center position for it to just run on regular diesel.

Yes there is a heater in the tank as well. I don't know why (maybe because it has an electric pump to assist it) but the one in the Suburban also has another gauge that tells me the temp in the tank. The one for the Mercedes did not come with one, but my mechanics told me to just drive the car until the temp is up to operating temp. and it should be ready to go.

I know that cars are that down in SoCal, AZ, TX. and don't even have a heater in the tank. It's usually warm enough down there that they don't need it. I have actually heard of people putting oil straight into the tank and mixing it with the diesel. (I don't suggest doing this, for what if it doesn't work out well)?

None of our other vehicles have leather interior just for the fact that yes, it's hotter than hell in the summer and colder than hell in the winter.

I might have had the upholstery guy do the door panels, but I wanted the car back and he took a good month or so to just do the seats. Granted, he had to wait on stuff. He had to order the material we'd picked-out, and then once he'd got the driver's seat apart, he found that there were 4 broken springs in it, so he had to order and wait for those as well.. (Before he fixed it, you had to put a pad on the seat to drive it, or you were basically sitting on the floor). Although, one thing I do wish this car had come with is a tilt steering wheel!

I am waiting until we have a day that is at least in the 80's before I attach the dash cap. It's been in the 60's and 70's here lately, and most of the time, overcast. Right now I have the car facing the sun (if it decides to show-up) with a towel and a couple big rocks holding it down. I am hoping the heat will kinda make it form more to it and a little easier to install. It's going to fit and look awesome! We decided on not painting it and leaving it black. Painted plastic never seems to work-out well. Even though there were places that I could buy one to match color wise, it was almost $75 more, and another $50 to ship it!. I paid $125 for this one in black, and free shipping.

And although we've re-done this car, we may just sell it and buy another one and do it all over again. It was actually quite fun doing this one, so it would be fun to do another one.

The paint link was way too cool! If I didn't have the money to paint this one, I definitely would have tried doing that. (I agree, it couldn't look any worse than it did, lol). This paint job came to $2700. If they were to fix everything and make it perfect, it would have been a $5000 job in the end. The $2700 was a little on steep side for us as well, but they did a really good job on it. They had painted our Suburban purple when we got it a couple of years ago, and they had done such a good job on it, we took the Mercedes to them as well.

I tried calling all over Spokane, WA. (closest big city to us) to have someone paint the car, but come to find-out, most paint shops do not paint full cars any more! Maaco was the only place in town that would do a full car, so obviously, they were the ones to paint it, lol. we are really happy with the way both vehicles turned-out.

Here are some pictures of "The Grapenator" and the system in it. (It is a '94 GMC 4x4 Diesel Suburban).

It's original "look":


After the paint job:




Tank in the back:


Where the hose's run into and out of the tank. They go under the vehicle up to the engine: (there is an electric fuel pump mounted on the wheel well up front that draws the oil from the tank).


The oil filter (just a regular oil filter) that is heated that the veggie oil goes through before hitting the fuel splitter:


Diesel/Veggie splitter mounted to the firewall:


The fuel switch is the red one on the bottom. It is a triple rocker switch. Center is off. To the right is on (the red light will come on). All the way to the left is purge. It works the same way in the Mercedes, just backwards since the switch is mounted the other direction, lol.


The tank heat gauge and the fuel level gauge mounted in the dash:


Thanks for looking!

300SDude

[koan]

I'm sure you've seen this Squig:

http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

You're a clever guy, I'm sure you could do it!

TJ and MT must be doing it the hard way

koan

[Squiggle Dog]

TJ and MT must be doing it the hard way

koan

If you have a spray gun and a place to do it, then that is a great way to go. I know I won't have either, so I'll have to resort to the roller-brush method.

You can get the dash caps in blue, by the way: http://www.mbparts.com/store/p/104-73-80-Mercedes-116-Body-Dash-Cover-16-280-.aspx -OR- http://www.dashtops.com/dashboard/buydash.cfm/5408 .

[1980sdga]

Don't laugh about the roller jobs guys. My bro in law knows a guy who painted his Ford truck like that. I had heard about it and figured it had to be a 100% POS job.  I was surprised when I saw it and the guy had painted it about a year earlier.

I was actually impressed. It wasn't the best paint job I've seen but it wasn't the worst by far!

[300SDude]

Don't laugh about the roller jobs guys. My bro in law knows a guy who painted his Ford truck like that. I had heard about it and figured it had to be a 100% POS job.  I was surprised when I saw it and the guy had painted it about a year earlier.

I was actually impressed. It wasn't the best paint job I've seen but it wasn't the worst by far!

I actually was WAY impressed by how that Corvair came-out! I have used Marine Paint before, but I used it on my BOAT! Mu dad used to drive an 18-wheeler, and when we"spiffied-up" his truck every couple of years, this was the paint I used to do all the wheels that were not aluminum.

It's a great idea......I have a couple other vehicles here that could use a paint job, but I am not spending anything near what I did on the other 2 vehicles....I may just try this out to be a fun project.

Too Cool!

300SDude