I searched but didn't find my questions so here goes :

1984 300CD , has had some really bad fungus and dirty fuel issues in the past , I bought it as a junker and have been enjoying it ever since .

The initial problem was : horrible smoking , grey/black , @ idle and much worse off idle and HUGE CLOUDS of evil grey Diesel smoke when I stamp on the throttle . I like to run it at 85 MPH most of the time .

Valves all adjusted .

Turbo rebuilt .

New filters , both .

Injectors pop tested , all spray a fine mist (no streams) and pop within a few pounds of each other .

I recently found a 1981 W-116 headed to the crusher and pulled all five delivery valves and pintles , took them home and cleaned them all up , they had some super fine black stuff in them .

Took the delivery valves out of my '84 Coupe and TWO were assembled inverted (!) all are different looking than the photos in the FSM .

# 1 was corroded , I wire brushed it but it still has dull spots so I didn't want to re use it .

Installed all the '81 W116 valves and pintles , the car runs *much* smoother now but still smokes a bit .

When I took the delivery valves out of my coupe I looked in the open IP wells and saw greyish opaque liquid , dirt and one tiny water bubble (!) plus some rusty looking stuff in one of the wells , I cleaned them all out with ether and swabbed inside with new Q-Tips to ensure cleanliness .

So , my questions :

What the hell are the different looking valves from , any way ? .

I hear talk of ' elements' and ' delivery valves ' in the IP , what are the ' elements ' ?? .

All this began when a very helpful member here tried to time my IP but the flow never slowed down and when he took the delivery valve spring out for the drip method , I spotted lots of tiny black bits of crud in there ~
I *thought* I'd killed off the terrible fungus but I see a tiny bit of black crud in the clear plastic intake screen .

Thoughts , comments please .

Car runs very well now, less smoke but still a shoot of grey smoke sometimes when taking off from a dead stop and it's now slightly less powerful ~ still chirps the tires going into second gear but takes longer to reach 100 MPH .

TIA , I'll appreciate all the chatter I read .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better