Here's photo evidence from the last TSD rally I took in on with the Detroit region SCCA. You can kinda still see the dent in the driver's door through the dirt. Sadly there was a run-in with a Subaru that killed the vent fender and the euro headlights, so I threw some NAm headlights on til I find another set of euros. The speedo was from a 2.85 diff gas car so I swapped the diff to match so it would be accurate for the event. It's a little peppier than the stock 2.65 diff. I've also swapped in manual window regulators I got from Norway to get around troubleshooting why the rear windows didn't work.
Oh Wow! My old 190D.
I really miss that car.
How is the manual transmission working out with the turbo?
In reply to Doc Brown :
The manual transmission with the turbo is pretty fantastic. I've owned a handful of manual Mercedes, gas and diesel, and swapped many more. It's absolutely the way to go. There was a pretty serious jerking issue at part throttle when I first got it swapped but that turned out to be a bad OVP relay giving an inconsistent signal to the idle control on the pump. Since I got that sorted it's been great and gets 35mpg cruising at 85 on the highway. Someone removed the cruise control motor at some point so I've been looking for one of those to get it working again, I have plenty of the control modules and a new stalk since the one in the car is floppy.
If you're interested in owning it again, I've been thinking about putting it up for sale. I bought a C43 with a blown motor a few weeks ago and swapped an E55 motor in with a 6-speed and the heated seats are really winning me over. I still use the 190D for anything out of town, it gave me a little trouble starting when it got down to -6°F last week but once it was going it did great the whole way to Flint and Kalamazoo and back to GR.
Great car! I’d be interested in owning it if you sell. I’m in W MI.
Furthermore, thank you for manual swapping the Benzs. Looking at what was available in the old country on mobile.de has been an eye opener.
In reply to DLCustom :
Shoot me a message/offer on facebook, my shop page is Kwiek Auto Rehab. I just opened the shop last summer and am trying to gain traction, a pandemic is a bad time to open a vintage Mercedes specialty shop... I'm about to start digging into a new project, swapping a C36 AMG motor and 6-speed into a '76 euro 280SL. I have a stockpile of 4/5/6-speed manual transmissions if you know anyone looking for a swap.
I figure it's about time for another update on this thread as I prepare for a properly stupid road trip next week.
The 190D (my fiance has taken to calling Delores) has been shockingly reliable over the last 16k miles. However, I really miss my old W124 wagon, and want another one. So I hatched a plan to build an OM606 turbo 6-speed swapped '87 300TD. I have all the parts to do it, the only real complication is that I'm in Michigan, and the wagon in question is in Seattle. Originally I was going to just drive out in my OM606/6-speed '73 F250 and trailer the wagon with the blown OM603 back to Michigan, but then I had a couple friends say they wanted to join. The next plan was to find a 60's Galaxie and throw a diesel in it and use that to tow the wagon home, but those are shockingly hard to find with a solid frame in the midwest for cheap. So the final itteration that I'm going forward with is this: install a hitch on the 190D, strap the OM606/6-speed to my tow dolly, pull the contraption to Seattle, do the swap in my friends' driveway, and use the wagon to tow the 190D home.
Now the 190D needed a little sprucing up before the trip, so I slapped on some new front brakes, installed new subframe bushings, a pair of used-but-less-blown-out Bilstein B8s, and thicker rear spring pads to account for the extra weight of all my tools and friends on the trip. I also installed a 16v rear swaybar to better match the 400E swaybar in the front. I thought this had been done, but it still had the 14mm bar in the back. I haven't driven it since doing this, but hopefully that annoying vibration around 1700rpm is gone with all the new rubber. I'll find out today. The reason I came back to the thread is because I finally found a climate control module and needed to figure out how to undue the wiring butchery since that little remote was lost with the last owner. I'm glad to see that a spare harness was used! Now to figure out where the original harness is tucked... and installed an AC compressor (the car doesn't even have one currently) and AC condensor and fans and hoses. Hopefully I have enough to piece the whole system together and get it functional before I drive across the great plains in July. I got it working on my 190E 16v last summer, how hard could it be?
Anyway, all this is to say that the 190D will actually be for sale once I get back to Michigan in my new 606/6-speed wagon. If anyone wants an ideal daily driver that gets 35mpg and is reasonably quick and handles shockingly well, let me know. I'll even weld in those jack points before it sells.
