Hi folks,

My grandson gets his license in about a year, and was given a fairly decent 1990 240DL by a friend of his family's. He wants me to help him fix it up and teach him about car maintenance before he gets his license. The car has 201,584 miles on it and the records it came with show it was maintained solely by the dealer for the first 120,000 miles of its life. After that no maintenance records and a quick look over of fluids and such tells me that after 120,000 miles the other owner(s) just changed the oil and fixed something if it broke.
The engine sounds good with no unusual noises, leaks, or smoke, but I would like to do a compression test on it to get an idea of engine health.

That said, should I go ahead and check the valve clearances before I do the compression test? Thanks

 

No need if the valves are not noisy.

 

If you want to do it just to give him the experience I believe the clearances are .014 - .018" cold on both intake and exhaust. E-I-E-I-E-I-E-I front to rear. Compression should be 128-156 psi and the lowest cylinder within 80% of the highest. I have a feeling you already knew that though.

 

Ok, I did both a warm and a cold compression test. Cold the cylinders read (1-4) 175 170 170 175 Warm they read 155 150 150 155

So all things considered, it looks like the engine is pretty healthy. Thoughts, Comments??