Wendy and I have been listening to a great deal of podcasts as we work outside each day. It inspired us to resume our Holy Scrap podcast recordings. We have recently put together a 30 minute episode about our experience with "Chance" which is our 1984 Mercedes 300TD that has been converted to run on Waste Veggie Oil. The podcast also includes a 15 minute interview with Andy Reitz who is one of the founders of GreenVans which rents out grease out vehicles to bands who are touring the country.
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Grease (Podcast)
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7 comments:
from a craftsmanship point of view, those w123 mercs were one of the best cars ever made. but $5000 in parts!? geez dude, where are you buying them? the best thing about owning an old german car is the replacement parts availability. have you tried the online parts stores like autohausaz.com, pelicanparts.com, rmeuropean.com, etc?
I should say that the repairs to the car did come to $5,000, but that was parts and labor and consumables (filters/oil).
The climate control was the most expensive, around $1200 to repair in order to get working A/C and heat.
We spent a lot around tires, brakes, and boots.
I had bought most of the equipment online from Diesel Giant and Mercedes Shop.
Sadly there are still two major issues with the car.
- The vacuum system in terms of door locks still leaks.
- It leaks a fair amount of oil.
Yo guys- podcast would not download or stream as of 6:30pm EST. Maybe it's me, I'll check and try again, but maybe not, eh???
ehhh....
Lookin forward to it!
-TS
Time smack give it another try I changed the links.
ah labor, thats the stuff that makes owning an old car really suck. can i ask why you dont work on it yourself? if you can build all this housing, web content, electronics, etc, the car should be a piece of cake.
there are plenty forums where folks talk about troubleshooting leaks with the central locking.
http://mbca.cartama.net/showthread.php?t=18731
all you really need are basic tools and a hand-powered vacuum pump. if all the locks dont work, id check the reservoir in the trunk, if only one is bad id check the individual actuator in the door.
any car that leaks lots of oil could have a clogged pcv system. if the pressure inside the crankcase isnt vented, the pressure will force oil out wherever it can. you can check by opening the oil filler cap with the engine running. if there is air blowing out (it wont be much) the pcv valve or hoses could be clogged.
Good question about car labor costs. I worked on every part of the car except for two areas that needed repair.
- Climate Control
- Tires/Brakes/Boots
Unfortunately, those two areas ended up costing more in labor than all the other fixes I made.
I'm pretty sure the locks come down to the trunk reservoir as they all work fine when the car is up and running. Thanks for the reminder, I have done a great deal of vacuum repair already just to fix transmission issues.
Good point about the oil leave possibly being a pcv clog. I've not heard about that system, but the next time I go to run the car I will follow your recommendation of feeling for airflow with the oil filler cap off.
BTW, this is the first car I have really worked on. I had never even changed my own oil or tire before so it has been a trial by fire kind of learning experience.
oh ok. i thought you meant you didnt touch it at all, which would be weird since you obviously dont mind getting your hands dirty. in that case, good luck with it and keep up the awesome blog. you two are doing some great work!
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