Hi All,

I'm working on my '89 300E. She's a doll, and I've had her since '95. She's got about a quarter million miles on her right now. And I've noticed over the past few years that the oil pressure gage dances around a little. Nothing major, but some small intermittent fluctuations that I've just kept an eye on. Since it's never gotten wild, I didn't worry too much about it. I'm using factory oil filters, and run Castrol 20-50 normally. The car is burning oil, but I kind of expected that with this many miles on her. The water temp never gets high at all on the car. Always a cool runner.

But things changed last Friday. I went to start the car to go home for lunch, and it was acting as if the battery was dying. It struggled to turn over, but finally fired and I drove it home. But she stalled twice on me after she came up to temp. I didn't see anything abnormal at the time. So I went on home and checked the atlernator and battery, and it all checked out fine. So I decided to give it a shot and took her on back to work. But the stalling thing was getting worse. And I noticed as I was pulling into the parking lot at work that the oil pressure was pegged all the way up, with only very slight fluctuations downward. And it stayed that way even at idle.

So I'm wondering: Do I have a plugged oil passage that's causing the internal components somewhere in the motor to heat and swell enough to cause the motor to try to lock up?

Part of what is encouraging me to think this is that I went ahead and drove it home. And since it was cool, and I only live a short distance from work, I thought that maybe since the car had a chance to cool down, it wouldn't be on the road long enough to heat up and stall even if there was a plugged galley. And that's exactly what happened. I drove all the way home with the oil pressure pegged, but it never stalled.

She's in the driveway right now and I'm not starting her till I find something out. I love this car and don't want to see her dead. But frankly I'm not in a financial positon to do a rebuild right now, so I'd like to explore other less invasive methods of getting my babe back in shape.

Any help at all would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Wendell