Going to board a small Yanmar-powered fishing boat soon. Taking a few days on the sea is a good part of the job.

The access to the engine bay in a Mercedes-Benz MB100 van (and its rebadged Korean versions Ssangyong Istana) is not that bad as some people complain, altough the engine position takes less space for another front seat. Anyway it's very good for a front-wheel driven van.

Electronic controls can provide some good performance with fuel-efficiency, but when something goes wrong it can get really expensive. I was even inquired about the viability of a 4JB1 repower into a Chrysler Town&Country originally powered by that Italian VM 428 DOHC. Seems doable, altough the gearbox settings are what can make it too expensive to justify.

If I would ever have a W115 Chedeng, even one fitted with the 55hp OM615 would be OK for me. Meanwhile in South Africa, seems like the W114 6-cylinder petrol variants were always the most sucessful ones, it's almost impossible to spot a 4-cylinder old Chedeng locally. Finding one repowered with the OM601 out of a Sprinter was quite a surprise.

During the Apartheid years South Africa had several economic sanctions imposed by the UN, but it didn't prevent local initiatives such as the now-defunct Atlantis Diesel Engines (ADE) which produced diesel-fired engines under license from Mercedes-Benz. Today I had the chance to see a 6-cylinder one in a bullnose Mercedes.