We took my daughter's 300D to Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. Coming back last night I learned the hard way that the fuel guage hangs up at a quarter tank. I had noticed that it hadn't moved in a while, and was thinking about the next stop where I could get diesel. It then lost power and I had to get off the freeway and on the service road. With the stupid automatic, I couldn't just kick it in neutral and coast. I ran the entire system BONE dry getting off the road.

Fast forward to point of diesel now in tank. I was worried about having enough battery to restart, because the emergency flashers had been on for quite a while.

I loosened all five lines at the injectors. I hand primed the filter full, and was relieved that I was drawing fuel with the hand pump since the car was on a slope away from the pickup.

After thoroughly hand priming, my wife cranked it while I watched the injectors. I saw fuel from the front two and told her to stop. She had only cranked for five or ten seconds. I tightened the two that I knew had fuel running out and told her to crank again. I saw fuel from all the others and the engine was trying to start.

I tightened the rest of the lines, and it busted off like nothing had ever happened. It ran on four for maybe three or four seconds before it was running well on five.

If you ever get in this situation, and I doubt that any of you will, because you're all smarter than me, a 17MM wrench will be very handy to ensure that you restart the car without running down the battery.

I hope you never need this hint, but if you do, don't forget it.

Have a great day,