After coming within a hair's breadth of selling my beloved 1975 Mercedes W115 300D, I have decided to rebuild her instead. I bought her in 1999, and originally promoted it to my wife as "Our Weddding Car', since it was built in the same year that we were married, 1975. She was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about the purchase. She saw right through my little ploy, but chose to indulge me and to overlook it, and that got me over the hump. Man smart, woman smarter.
At the time, I didn't care about the non-running status, since all I really wanted was the rust-free West Coast body. I already had a running, rust bucket 1976 300D. My plan was to simply swap my 1976 engine into the 1975 body. Naturally, 'the best laid plans of mice and men.... etc. etc."
Marlene is in need of considerable attention: using way too much oil; paint is in poor shape; interior in need of refurbishing.
I have a spare engine that was smoking too much from my 1976 300D that I sent to the boneyard about 10 years ago... I stripped it of anything remotely useful, and the parts have been stored in my garage since then. The first step is to examine the 1976 engine to see if it is salvageable for restoration. I looked at it today.... it is showing some rust in the cylinders. I will have a machine shop look it over for a final determination. I will also have them look over the cylinder head, which I kind of buggered when stripping it off the engine. When I stripped it, I wasn't thinking of reusing it. I was more interested in getting a look at the internals. If either the head or the block is salvageable, or both, I can rebuild, pull the other engine, swap off the parts I need, and reinstall it in the car, with a minimum of downtime.
However, it is very possible that the 1976 engine is beyond salvage, and I will then just rebuild the original 1975 engine.
..... To be continued.!
A word about the name:
I have owned the car for 12 years now, and I have never been able to successfully arrive at a name that really fits. If I was going to choose a name, which I have never done for any of my cars, I wanted something Germanic, something meaningful, and something... catchy. My wife likes the car, so I wanted to include her in the selection... and I suggested "Diederich", a family name. She thought the name should be feminine, which I couldn't argue with.... having come up with several male names that just didn't make it. So.... a feminine name... to be combined with the Diederich family name.... Hmmm. What about Marlene, my wife asked? BINGO! Marlene Diederich it is!!
I pulled the first piston out of the 1976 spare engine today. It appears ok to my untrained eye... but I may seek a second opinion from a TRAINED eye. I think the problem with this engine, based on a cursory visual inspection, is in the #5 piston, and maybe #4 also. It was smoking a lot, back in 1999, so I am thinking it needs rings. I used a ridge reamer today to remove the ridge in all the cylinders, and those two cylinders seemed to have an accumulation of oil, in addition to the normal carbon buildup. With the ridge removed, the #1 piston came right out without any problem. I hope to get a look at #4 and #5 in the next couple of days, and that should be an interesting comparison.Both the block and the head are cast iron, and the cylinders are sleeved. This block has been sitting in my garage for over 10 years, and there is some rust showing in a couple of the cylinders. This is not a good sign, and if I decide to use this block, I will probably have to re-sleeve the cylinders. The sleeves are available, but the installation and prep will probably have to be done at a machine shop. Cost: the sleeves are about 40 bucks each (x 5); installation cost is unknown.
