1988 W124 300 TurboD Coupé ''Gold'nBrown'' - intercooling it

Motivational - it certainly helps to boost the mojo So much, that I even was up for a little playing with parts after work.

This partly grown in wreck donated two parts I wanted to have...



A oil cooler cowling (to have one I can cut up and one unmolested one) and a titty twister - er - twin AC fan.



Due to the intercooler I had to ditch the old single fan, which was just too big to clear the intercooler... There's no space between the condenser & IC. I hope I can gain 1-2mm clearance between them to prevent heat transfer. But it's blöödy tight there!



The twin fans leave enough room to the AC, I can even cut up the cowling and install it. Should make it look a bit more refined and factory



However, as always: one problem solved, gained two new problems



^The condenser is different and the power steering cooler doesn't clear the left hand fan... Will it eeeever stop?? I hope at least the big IC hose will connect to both version of the AC condenser. The good part is though; the newer style condenser has the brackets for the twin fans integrated, so I don't have to make them. And since that condenser is shagged anyway - more than enough reason to get a new one. With the original mounts cut off I can slot this in from below, which is quite nice!

And then I had to put on my sad face, because:



Why was I even thinking that a 320E and 300D Turbo would share the same oil cooler? Shame on me - I should have known that MB HAD to come up with different oil coolers for different engines. Why woulkd they use the same? Makes no sense at all!!

Blöööödy hell... What a rats tail of issues

Cheers,
Jan

I've looked into yet another option, a W203 intercooler. I couldn't find non-conflicting infos on the net, so I bought a cheap one to compare/test-fit. The verdict is: it's curse word. The core is a tad longer, but still smaler, overall it's a tad shorter than the W204 IC. And it has quick-fit conections which are not easily modified into accepting normal boost hoses with hose clamps... Was worth a shot, but - nope.



Next bit that arrived is a front sway bar from a 4.2l V8. It has a wide bow in the front, which I hope will clear the W210 oil pan. If it does, this makes it a lot easyer to route the boost pipe from the turbo to the IC. But I need to look it the W210 oil pan can be made to fit the W124 flywheel sensor... Anyway, it is onther possibility for the engine swap, another option of approaching things. I'm not decided yet. But if I need it - I have it.



And a rather expensive but smal parcel arrived from DK



As you can see it's contents are rated "R", so I can't show you what's inside - I can tell you it's very pornographic indeed

That's all. No time for actuall work, so I'll just show of what I can do with money

Cheers,
Jan

Ah. Oh well. Bliss & bitterness. almost two weeks ago I bought a differential. The one I needed so badly. Today was finally the day and I was greated by this at the door when I came home from work:



A W124 diff with the ultra-rare 2.87:1 gear set AND ASD!! I was like *WOOO-FOOKING-HOO!!!!!*.

Untill I tried to turn it.

Which it didn't.

Yes. Stuck solid.

FÜCK!!!

Can you not leave it to stand in something to soak and free off the offending bearing?

Bloody bargain either way though, wish i could get a good clean diff like that for my ole german bus

Well I guess if a ball bearing is seized, there's no chemical in the world that will fix it. The bearings are expensive at MB's, but I could bet they used off-the-shelf bearings and no special made bearings. IF it's a bearing, I'm not yet entirely sure about that. But I'll find out. If time allows.



I payed 120€ including shipping for the 3.07. And I think that was a bargain, I'd assume a good one will be in the region of 150-200€? Don't know. But they'r sought after, like all the tall ratios. As for the 16V diff - no idea. But I think people like these for simplicity over the hydraulically actuated diff. With a W124 rear cover it will alos fit the W124 chassis

Testing: yeah, that's pretty much what I do. Also turn the output shafts against each other to see how much play the differential gears have (they usually wear out first). It's not very scientific, but you can tell a peach from a turd, so to say.

Well - who knows. Maybe another 2,87 ASD turns up, I'll just buy it. I don't have a deadline for this anyway. So - time's with me But it would have been nice to cross the diff off the list for good. But oh well.

Cheers,
Jan

Yeah yeah, I know. But ball bearing is easyer to type (yes, I'm that lazy ) Seller offered sending naother diff - I'm not stopping him

Hi!

Thanks, I figured that out myself allready Simples.

However - there might be yet another change of plans, since there appeared a ray of hope on the horizon... It's not going to be cheap, but a LOT less time consuming. And much more interesting. To make it short: I may have the opportunity to buy a good OM603 cylinder head. and that's why I cracked on with the E290 TD manifold. Or better; cracked up the E290 manifold, since I can only make use of half of it.



The forward 3 runners clear the oil filter housing, just. But I can get the lid off and the filter out. Just.



And they also clear the ALDA and all the injection lines without any adjusting. Nice! The only interference is the heater pipe coming from the rear of the cylinder head. But I could bet that there's a E290 part that will help to solve that issue



And the long runners bring the plenum forward far enough to have a boost pipe from the intercooler runing past the oil cooler lines. Saif plenum will have to be fabricated, I hope I can make it appear factory-ish with grinding down welds and sand blasting it (heavily).



The end result will look something like this montage and give me good access to the rear of the pump and the ALDA - and also, not unimportant with automatic transmission - the STOP lever. Glow plugs will also be accessible through the opening.



I've ordered a second E290 manifold to hack apart - all looking good. And if I can't get hold of that cylinder head, there's still a OM606 waiting in the shed. It's much more work to make the OM606 work than to make this engine work better and intercool it - and as you may have noticed, time has become an issue. I like both engines - and I love the OM603 for it's economy. The 606 is a bit worse in that respect. Both engines will be run with intercooler, so making that fit is just about the same amount of work regardless of 2 or 4 valves per cylinder.

As always - things may change again... And whatever change of plan might occur - there's always one turbo-engine left over for the Taxi

Cheers,
Jan

Hesitantly excited - feared it was the end - still watching with respect!

Manifold number two arrived today. This one's allready been cleaned, nice! The other is full of blöödy disgusting EGR gunk... *puke*