Nick's diesel 245 project

Nick's MS2 Sequential 245 project, was diesel project

I'm good friends with and work for Josh, sdturbo here on the forum. I've had lots of time in and around his TDI powered 245 and liked it so much that I wanted to build something similar. Being budget minded as a broke college student is, I need to keep build and operating costs as low as possible. Here in southern California, as I'd imagine other places, Volvo's are abundant in the salvage yard making them extremely cost effective for parts and maintenance. I've taken a few trips in Josh's wagon and it's awesome for hauling enough stuff to make for fun weekends. Naturally, a 245 was the chassis of choice for this project. I picked up an 88 245 last weekend I found on the local craigslist:



The car needs a bit of work. All of the bushings were shot, the steering was loose, the car has the wrong brakes installed on the front, the rear springs are saggy, and all of the other expected issues 240's have. I've already changed the inner and outer tie rod ends and the brakes. As soon as my new shocks and struts arrive I'll tackle all of the bushings and the rest of the suspension stuff.

As for the diesel engine. The requirements were the same as the chassis, cheap to obtain and maintain. The only engine that fit these requirements is the Mercedes OM617. The day after Thanksgiving last month Josh and I went down to the 50% off day at one of the salvage yards here in San Diego. I picked up an OM617.952 for $150. The engine comes out of early 80's 300D's. These cars are also abundant around here in the yards making parts for the engine cheap.



The engine is currently torn apart to inspect and replace any parts that need service. While the engine parts are at the machine shop, I am tackling the small issues on the 245 to make it nice to drive.

As I make progress I'll document it in this thread as well as the build gallery on my website:
http://pictures.nsfabrication.com/v/cars/245/

Cool, I reckon turbo diesel conversions will become more and more popular.

nice!
you have a pretty clean 245 to work with, may I say....

Sweet! The merc diesel is a good choice. My first car was a 78 240d...n/a woo!

Eww diesel gross!

gonna crank the boost up?

Are the rack and oil pan going to play together?
Looks like a fun project though.

Sweet project dude!!
far out that thing has a massive clutch fan!!

I had the engine before the car and had no idea the OM617's were that massive. I mean, you look at a 3.8 BMW or a 2JZ or something and they're dwarfed by this engine. I did lots and lots of measuring and it was looking grim on paper to make it happen. What it came down to is I can theorize all I want, I'm just going to have to get the car and do it. And that's where I'm at now.

The engine will span the entire length of the engine bay, the crank pulley will be just inches from the radiator. The clutch fan won't exist, it will have electric instead. The rack and subframe clearance does not look like it will be an issue, however, the swaybar will be in the way. Worst case scenario I can make the engine rear sump instead. Again, stuff I can talk about all day long but won't really know until the engine is sitting in the engine bay.

Boost will be increased as soon as fuel quantity suits the need.

On with the suspension stuff.

UPS was good to me last night, bringing me my new shocks and strut cartridges. I took a little time today to change the rear shocks. I was still unhappy with the ride because of the saggy springs in the rear so I had to do something about that. I removed the stock spring and looked around the back yard for another spring that may work. I had no luck finding a spring that would work but I did come across an old ebay coilover kit that I had laying around. I took the adjustable sleeves out of the kit and installed them on the stock saggy spring. To hold the sleeves on the trailing arm I cut a piece of 1.75" tube and welded one end with a piece of .125" plate that matched the diameter of the tube. I drilled a hole in the plate to match the bolt hole on the trailing arm and bolted the tube onto the arm. I used O-rings to hold the adjustable sleeve tight in its place. The stock spring installed over the sleeve and I was able to raise the back of the car up on stock saggy springs that way. This will also allow me to put different springs on in the future and maintain adjustability.





On the diesel side of things, I built an injector pop tester out of a harbor freight bottle jack to measure and adjust my injectors:

are you sure it is safe

No, I had no consideration of my own safety while working on the project

Your almost matches mine

155 BAR WD40 makes a decent bolt cleaner too

Yep, it also makes for a great flamethrower:

Nice flamethrower!

give me the injection pump and we can go threw it and make a few upgrades.....At work we have all of the machines to test and rebuild them.

Got a set of Virgos at the junkyard 2 weekends ago and have spend a lot of time stripping and blasting them to powder coat them. Did two of the wheels today, the other two will get coated when they're completely stripped.

This is really a great build up, I have always been a huge fan of Mercedes diesels and the 300D from that era has to be one of the best. When you get the chance convert the glow plug system to a pencil type... this will make life a lot easier especially in the cold..TRUST ME! On the 300's it's an easy DIY kit. For great technical help on Mercedes go to www.mercedesshop.com and read the forums!

Good luck, I really want to see how this turns out!

I spy a tube header in the background.... Any chance its for the Merc Diesel? No, its for a 16v it looks like.

Any chance this thing will have a massive turbo?

Funrover said:

When you get the chance convert the glow plug system to a pencil type

Click to expand...

83-85 OM617's come with pencil glow plugs from the factory, mine already has them being an 85.

DecalServiceBrett said:

I spy a tube header in the background.... Any chance its for the Merc Diesel? No, its for a 16v it looks like.

Any chance this thing will have a massive turbo?

Click to expand...

That manifold is for a friends 4G63. I'm going to keep the stock cast manifold on the mercedes for the time being. It's has a T3 flange on it so the turbo options are limitless. Initially I'll be running Josh's (sdturbo) old T04B from his 242 build.