1979 Mercedes Benz 300SD

We bought this Mercedes 300SD in August 2010. The guy I bought it from had it for close to 20 years, and he had purchased it from his boss prior to that. We paid him $500 for the car. We purchased this car because we wanted a car that we could convert to run on WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) like our '94 Suburban does. This vehicle is also considered a collector's vehicle and has a license plate to declare so. We never have to buy tags or have it inspected again.

I have always been kind of a car nut, and have always wanted a Mercedes, but could never really afford one. This one, I could afford, lol. I was 8 years old when this car was new. It was actually in pretty good condition for the price.

We live on 40 acres in the mountains, and the WVO Greasecar Suburban we have is 4 wheel drive, so we wouldn't really drive this car in the winter. I had my mechanics keep it through the winter and work on putting the veggie system in that I purchased from Greasecar for this model Mercedes.

This is the veggie oil tank that is in the trunk.

There is a fuel gauge and a rocker switch mounted where the ashtray goes inside the car to switch between diesel and veggie oil.  It smells like french fries coming out of the exhaust, lol.

After we got it back from the mechanics (who also did a number of other things while it was there......new stuff on the driveline and new bushings for most of the body, and so on) it went to the upholsterer's for a month. The back seat was completely unusable.

Before:

After:

They also recovered the rear deck in the back window:

Next it went into the paint shop to be painted Tourmaline Blue/Green:


I do have the missing strip that goes before the door window, I just have to re-install it on. One of the clips that hold it on was broke, so I took the whole thing off before I lost it. Luckily, the paint guys found it in the trunk and painted it to match the car as well.

Right now I am installing a dash overlay to cover up the 3 major cracks that were in the original. I also installed a new heat cover on the bottom of the hood, since the old one was missing, and you could tell where it had baked the original paint off.

300SDude (Donnie)
Hunters, WA.