Some weeks back, I thought I had a turbo problem with my 82 300SD and got good advice from several on this list, esp. Jim and Kaleb.
The symptoms were low power that I finally realized was fuel starvation (unable to maintain speed on highway, especially uphill) that only began after traveling several miles at highway speed. I suspect that some driving was required to agitate enough crud off the bottom of the tank to plug all the area of the in-tank filter screen. Turns out the turbo (and all associated stuff) is fine. The problem was very dirty fuel that plugged up the in-tank strainer. The fix was to drain and wash all the crud out of the tank, change fuel filters, and fresh (clean) fuel. There was so much debris in the tank that it plugged up my topsider when I tried to suck the fuel out of the gage hole on top of the tank. After I drained the tank and removed the strainer, I could still see plenty of crud in the bottom of the tank. I tried a garden hose with limited success and finally used my pressure washer to loosen and flush the crud from the tank. Then I used a shop vac on blow to dry up the water. This took several hours. A road test today confirmed that the fix worked. By the way, the fuel gage sensor was all gooked up inside too. I have not been driving this car much for the last 6 months so I suppose it could be diesel bugs, but I don't think so. Most if the debris was visible-size chunks of stuff, like rust crumbs, for example. The problem started suddenly on the way home from a weekend trip shortly after refueling. So I suspect I got a load of dirty fuel at that last fuel stop. As a final amusing note, I found the bottom disk and nut from a fuel gage sensor in the debris that came out of the tank so it looks like the sensor self-disassembled for some previous owner. Scott Ritchey Kittrell NC 1982 300SD 220K 1979 300TD 350K
