Hello, Newbie from South Africa

Hello Jurgen,

Welcome to the GWOA.  I have a few suggestions you would have, probably considered and a few questions for your consideration.  Ideally, my choice would be to fit a Porsche 928 engine; an unconfirmed story of a 928 engine; may have been considered, as a possible power plant, before Mercedes Benz took over the G-Wagen program.  I am trying to have this confirmed, but no joy so far.

You have mentioned, that you want a M/Benz power plant; here the options are abundant, but checking the the Russian EPC, it seems the South African market may be limited to the power plants available to you there.

From the choices available to you, according to this EPC, is, from car engines' you the the CLK models and the vans; there are engines I have never heard of.  So, not knowing, what is sourceable in South Africa, the choices seem very limited.

Fuel prices in the UK is at a fore front for many.  Distance and purpose of use of your vehicle is again your consideration.  I would have said, if distance travel is your thing, given the fuel economy of Diesels', that has advantages in many respects.  You could, in cases of fuel shortages, substitute to run on cooking oil instead giving you some additional flexibility.  The Sprinter van, turbo-charged engines gives excellent performance comparing to the Petrol engines and the fuel advantages, I have mentioned, seems obvious to me, as a choice for consideration.  Are the Sprinters' available in SA.? 

Some have used the V8 engines from the old W116 chassis, but with that, there is more modifications to consider, like moving the position of the brake servo unit and possibly, fabrication  of a slimmer steering column. This conversion, stresses the gearbox, I don't quite know how it stands to normal Road and Off Road use, my example is of experience of a club member here, who used this conversion in Rock crawling and I think, Hill climb events.

In the W463, the 300GE uses the OM103 six cylinder engine; these, should be available to you, if you want to go in that direction, or even consider the OM104 engine.

Are you of a Manual or Automatic gearbox persuasion?  One point, that has just occurred to me, should you consider changing to Diesel, would you need to change the fuel tank?  An additional conversion cost to the project or can the same tank be adapted to accommodate the fuel delivery and return?  I have never previously thought of that point, as I have never done or fully considered a conversion exercise.  The tanks don't come cheap as the steel tanks are no longer available; the plastic replacements and fitting kits are expensive.

I am sorry, I can not offer more constructive help than that, if you let us know more on your thoughts and ideas maybe, someone could help develop on that concept.

Keep us informed.