Your electrical gremlins appear to be in the main electrical connections from the battery to the vehicle electrical system. Check them for cleanliness and tightness. While you are at it, check the fuses and fuseholders for cleanliness.
Turn the headlights on; Do they illuminate? Are they rather dim or at normal brilliance? If dim, recheck the electrical connections (feel each connection as high resistance may cause heating of the connector)

Repeat your starting checks once you are confident of all main electrical connections.

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Tony from West Oz.
Fatmobile 3 84 300D 295kkm Silver grey/Blue int. 2 tank WVO - Recipient of TurboDesel engine.
Josephine '82 300D 390kkm White/Palamino int.
Elizabeth '81 280E, sporting a '79 300D engine.
Lucille '87 W124 300D non-turbo 6 cylinder OM603, Pearl Grey with light grey interior


Various parts cars including 280E, 230C & 300D in various states of disassembly.

If your battery was completely discharged a one hour charge with a trickle charger is not even close. Especially for a diesel. Turn on the parking lights as mentioned above and leave the charger on overnight. Turn the parking lights off after an hour or so. If it doesn't crank after an overnight charge I might still suspect the battery to be the problem. In the meantime, checking all the connections is an easy first step while you wait.

Hey Tony from West Oz and Diesel Fan,

I let her trickle charge for about 5 hours this afternoon and had to see if she'd turn over. She did but... the "Check Engine" light came on with "Engine Electronics" lit up. I thought I'd drive her in a short loop to see if I could get her to lose that light. No luck.

She turns over consistently now and lights seem OK but now the damn sunroof is stuck wide open. Maybe that motor has a big draw? So I have her in the garage, parking lights on, and trickle charging. I'll turn the parking lights off in a while and let her charge overnight.

I'd love to check the connections but don't know enough to do so. If you know where I could find that info that would be great. If worst comes to worst I can take her to a local mechanic who is great with these cars. Now at least I don't have to get her towed.

Thanks again for your time and assistance,

-Bill-

Do I understand correctly that the car now starts and runs well? If so, then the rest is easy, I think. I believe the CEL will go away if the original problem has. Try using it normally and after a while I believe the system will correct the display by itself. As for the roof, I believe you need only "synch" it. Try searching for that because I don't recall how to do it. You may find your door windows will not work correctly either and there are a few other items. Again, use the search or someone else may chime in with better help. Looks like all is well and it's probably a good idea to deep charge the battery again as you're doing.

check the battery cables at both ends.

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Brian
87 300Dturbo 180K #14 head still running R-12 SOLD 12/2017
02 F350 Powerstroke 180K
05 Chevy Express 1 ton w/Royal Utility box 120K
08 Infiniti FX-35 40K
15 Golf Sportwagen TDI 35K
10 Sprinter 3500 chassis with a Class A Winnebago on it. 56K

From having experience with my setup and charging issues, you are wasting your time trickle charging your E300. The way to do it is to get a good pair of jumper cables. Use the underhood "+" terminal and connect to the donor vehicle. If you battery is pretty dead, make sure you choose a vehicle w/ a good charging system. Start up the other vehicle, now connect the ground to the block on each engine and you are in business.

You will see the engine revolutions on the donor vehicle to drop slightly and lights, if on, to dim slightly. Give it a minute or so, turn on the ignition, let the glow cycle do it's thing, after the light goes off give it another 20 seconds to ensure the glow plugs warm up well so the starter doesn't have to crank long to get the engine to fire. Mind you, you are doing all of this while the donor vehicle is running and connected via jumper cables. Turn the engine over and you will fire that E300 up within a few revolutions. Obviously @ this point you can disconnect the jumper cables. let the vehicle run, take a short trip and watch the code 24 onthe climate control until voltage read at least 13.0 volts and then your battery is fully charged and you're good to go.


TRUST Me, I've been through enough charging issues with mine. I ended up having a defective Interstate battery and never new it. Anyway. I've learned that anytime I know I'm gonna need to do some cranking, say to purge the fuel system, I just jumper the E and off I go... No hiccups or problems when jumped. The donor car I've used is our C220 :-)

Hope that helped. Using another battery or trickle charging is a waste of your time. These high compression engines NEED JUICE.

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#dieselFLEET
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'97 E300
'99 E300

Sorry for the delayed response. I had to leave on business and finally got back to updating y'all.

I did the overnight trickle charge then took her over to a mechanic's shop nearby. The car was still displaying the Check Engine "Electrical Function" which had me nervous. I thought I might have fried something.

Tioga (German car mechanic extraordinaire) jacked into the dash and read the fault codes. While I can't remember the exact description it was a glow plug issue that he is pretty certain was related to the low power starts. He reset the codes and none have re-appeared since.

So, after all that it WAS the battery.

Thanks to everyone for their input and help. Hope to return the favor someday.

olu,

This sounds like corroded battery terminals. Corroded terminals can work very intermittently. The not working previously is the main clue. Take off the terminals and clean them and the battery posts with a terminal brush and then wash with ammonia.

If this doean't work, try R&R and cleaning battery cable ground connection and the connection to the solonoid.

P E H

P.S. WHat's a spark glow plug?

Sounds like the battery was on its way out anyway. Pull it out and have them test it, sounds like a dead cell. Did you check the water levels in the cells?

MB or INterstate Batteries are my favorite.

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91 350SD
14 F150 Eco
19 Fusion Hybrid
11 GT500

It sounded like you were not charging the battery enough. For future reference if you called the MB roadside number in your glove box they would have sent someone right over to jumpstart you.


Diesels need lots of juice to crank, michakaveli nailed it jump start that sucker.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200