ginjaninja

Good evening everyone,

I picked up this car a few days ago and I'm experiencing poor acceleration. After a good amount of research, I delved into tracing vacuum lines. I didn't want to start pulling things till I got a second opinion..

First image, the car
Second image the Vacuum line schematic, with Edits for question'd vacuum line placement
third image: A possible missing line at 19.1, which should go to 14.4 Port 3.
Forth Image of the VCV, edits containing what I believe are incorrect connections.

From what I'm seeing:
- The missing Line on 19.1 should be going to 14.4 Port 3, currently port 3 on 14.4 is going to 14.2
- Port 5 on 14.4 is going to 14.9, which according to the schematic doesn't need anything connected..

Could anyone verify my thought are correct? I disconnected the hoses on the questioned lines and oil is present on the tip of the line. I don't want to put a line/oil where it should be. Also, I don't get into 4th gear, the car only shifts twice and is much slower than other 240ds i'm reading about.

vwnate1

Need a better photo of the throttle to tranny linkages on the rockerbox .

My 240D is a 1982 and has the hard linkage, not the T.V. cable, my tranny is a 722.117 IIRC .

Some of these start off in first gear and so are incredibly slow from a dead halt .

Easy to test : how many shifts do you feel ? . if three it's starting off in first gear .

Next is : before touching anything else you *must* do a routine valve adjustment, engine dead cold, to .004" intake and .014" exhaust . you'll need two bent open end 14MM wrenches, easy to make, just look them up and use a gas torch to soften & bend them .

Then replace both primary (clear plastic W/ metal screen inside, DO NOT use the translucent white ones!) and the secondary spin on fuel filter then do a Diesel Purge, these are old tech cars and are dead simple to maintain but they *DO* require periodic maintenance else the power falls off slowly until the owner gets P.O.'d and sell it .

Grasp each and every rubber fuel hose joint and see if you can twist it by hand ~ if so it's bad and needs replacing with DIESEL RATED 7MM hose, plus the correct hose clamps, not those screw typ ones that cut up the hose .

Old hose isn't flexible enough and allows air to get sucked in, causing low power and poor driving performance .

Also, look at the throttle linkage between the engine and injection pump, wedge (or have someone) hold the throttle to the floor, there's a limiting arm that raises up as the throttle is depressed, it *must* touch the limiting stop .

DO NOT re adjust the various throttle rods if it doesn't ~ look at the firewall's rubber pivoting isolator, this often fails and limits throttle travel .

This is not a fast car but it's also acceptably slow so don't go off track making adjustments until you personally know all the little niggly things that are nearly always neglected, are dead bang on then you'll discover that although it has low horsepower, every bit of that power is available at every RPM / load range making it a fun car to drive .

Sometimes the EGR valves get stuck open after the decades but you need to check the basic things first else you'll wind up chasing your tail and hating the car .

It's critical to do these steps in the order listed .