OK bit of a stumper here....

I drove another 300GD cabrio a few weeks back and realized that I have been down on power since I bought the truck (I never had a basis of comparison so I never realized)

In order to check the tank strainer I ran diesel purge directly from a bottle under the hood and noticed only a little improvement afterwards. (And no drastic change while driving either)

Getting frustrated I dropped off my truck last week to my Mercedes mechanic to go through a few things to see if we couldn't sort of the source of the problem. He did a valve adjustment and tested the injectors and found that one of them was 'pissing'. He also checked the timing chain for stretch (Just a small amount) and he put in a new chain tensioner, fuel priming pump and injector. I also put in new fuel filters. Hoping that I had cracked the nut I was disappointed to see a maybe 10% improvement. The truck has a bit more pep and responds a little bit better. So at least i'm getting somewhere.....here is where things get odd though.

My mechanic mentioned that after buttoning everything up that he had a hard time getting the truck restarted (I never had a problem with this before) It would crank and cough a bit but it took a lot of cranking to get it going. I didn't think much of it at the time because when I picked it up it started perfectly. (And a few more times throughout the day)

Last night however while leaving work I cranked the engine and it started with a bit of a stumble but then died after idling for about 5 seconds. I primed the heck out of the pump two times and it wouldn't even start. At this point the truck was parked uphill so I turned it around to more level ground and after another attempt was able to get it going. This morning, same problem. I said "Alright, fuel flow, that tank strainer must be clogged." The screws on the access panel were so bad that I had to drill them out and what a mess underneath it....There was so much dirt, grime and particles under the panel that I couldn't even see the lines. I vacuumed everything out and ran straight into problem #1. I don't think I can even get the lines off....and even if I do I will probably breaking them. (As is what happened when I removed the sending wire.....one connection snapped right off.

My girlfriends father who was helping me came up with the idea of running compressed air down the lines to unclog it. I should note at this point that priming the pump didn't seem to be drawing much fuel but after blowing the lines it seemed to be flowing much better. It still took some doing and we cracked the injector lines to remove any air but the truck eventually started again.

My girlfriends father thinks I might have a weak injection pump. I'm still on the thought of clogged strainer.

Any thoughts will be highly appreciated. (I have a few pictures which I can upload tomorrow)

__________________
1982 300GD Carmine Red (DB3535) Cabriolet Parting Out
1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
1991 350SDL Blackberry Metallic (481)

"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."