Have your battery checked. If it was left dead from mid dec till now it is likely toast. You can do a crude test by having all of the caps off of the battery and then have someone turn on the lights or the glow plugs then look in each hole in the battery. If one of the holes "boil " that hole is toast and so is your battery,.Make sure you are wearing eye protection as a battery explosion is a real possibility and can cause serious injury or even kill you.
Another way to test is to have it fully charged (like over night) then take to any place that sells batterys and they will test for you.
You can probably get the car started even if you have a bad battery if you can pull it to like 25 mph then puy it in 2 gear . the compression of the motor will start it sooner or later.( not more than a 1/4 of a mile) This will work with an auto or a standard transmission.
Do for sure have fuel and is it flowing ?
You can determine this by looking at the clear filter by the injection pump.

Good luck and post your results so others can learn.

JOHN

Madsen:

I have an auto. Are you saying, try and pull it and then drop it in gear? I didn't know this worked on an auto.

My battery has been all charged up and it did crank the motor over; however, after I used that damn ether, the car does not crank any more. I wonder what the ether did to it.

When you say it seized, have you tried turning it by hand, either at the power steering pump or the large bolt on the crankshaft?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I agree with others, the ether did not do any damage. Make sure you're getting fuel, rig up a make shift fuel tank, do a purge while you're there. Make sure your starter is up to the task also.

Edit: yes you can pull start an auto, instructions are in the owners manual.

__________________
83 SD

84 CD

I had 2 mb diesels with the no start prob.Not much money and a little time later they are both running down the road.
1)You must check your compression ,a hot battery and good fuel delivery with good glow plugs is nothing without good compression.If it is bad their is a way to bring it back up .(OLD MERCEDES DIESELS ARE NOTORIOUS FOR NO START ISSUES AFTER SITTING UP )
2)Once you have your COMPRESSION numbers right them down for each cylinder.
3)Take your injectors out and package them individually to which cylinder it owns,youll need to get a stick magnet to pull the heat shield OUT also,IT REST DOWN IN THE HOLE UNDER THE INJECTOR ,looks like a washer .Make sure this is done.
4)Pour half a cup of Marvel Mystery oil in each hole and let it soak 2 to 5 days.
5)This is the messy part for your engine,to purge out the oil youll have to turn the motor over spraying out the oil.
6)Recheck your compression(my numbers came up in some holes 130 on the numbers)(still not enough for a start)
7)The final procedure is to buy 2 cans of Rislone compression repair.Pour 2 cap fulls in each hole ,then change your motor oil out with new filter but when adding the oil make sure you mix the rest of the rislone product well with the new motor oil before adding any oil to the engine ,this is critical .Turn the motor to coat the cylinder wall with the rislone ,again very messy ,you might cover the motor area with a sheet.
8)Now, after this is performed your ready to see your results,go back and check your compression ,youll be surprised .Then put back your heat sheilds ,very important,then your injectors.Prime your fuel and your ready for start up .(It would be good to be recharging the battery so its hot on your start up in between the wrenching.)

When changing the oil in the future youll still want to add 1 can Rislone to keep the additive going.Im not saying it will work for you all I can say is that Id spent $350 for a mechanic to get just one of these cars going with no luck and with this method I did it myself for less than $50. ,this included new glow plugs were they were needed before hand.

I thought of that but I have not done that yet. I will and I'll get back to you.

thx.

Toomany:

Well, that's a relief.

I will try setting up make-shift second tank. thx.

I don't have the owner's manual. What's the trick?

Chase:

Thanks for the instructions. I don't have the time to do this but come this summer I will. Hopefully I can get it started, or get along without it.

I am jumping in right in the middle but when you say it won't crank that is telling me the motor isn't spinning and the starter isn't working. Is this true?

If so then you need to check the starter circuit out.

__________________
1977 300D Lost coolant while someone else was driving
1983 300D Can't run without oil
1985 300SD (gone but not forgotten)
1990 300TE 4matic Sold
1991 Yamaha Venture
1975 Kawsaki 250 triple
1974 Honda 200CL
1951 8N Ford
2008 Wildfire 650C

MB:

What you're thinking is what I'm saying. I used ether and now the car doesn't even crank.

The starter was working fine before the shot of ether, but now I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm charging my battery up right now and I am going to try and crank it tomorrow. I am also going to try and crank the motor with my hands---on the main pulley.

Other than that, I don't know what i did.

I'm about 99% certain your battery is toast. Charge and have it load tested just to make sure.

__________________
Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Look Hardyboy, get your mind off of the ether!!!!
Have your battery tested and go from there.
You can't turn the engine literally with your hands, you put a 27mm socket on the crankshaft bolt and turn it clockwise only. Do you have another vehicle with a good battery you could swap in? Just make sure to connect positive and negative correctly.

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Will do.

thx Jimmy

It sounds like you might be toast as well, doing this test. I would stay away from it. I have done some risky things in my time and looking back realize that I risked injury for what? To save a few bucks or was too lazy to do something properly? No offense, John, but I would be careful about handing out this kind of advise to amateur mechanics.

__________________
85 300D 75K Anthracite Grey 0-60 in 13 seconds **For Sale**
84 300D 333K Black (The Velveteen Rabbit) 0-60 in 14 seconds
00 Toyota Sienna 208K (Sold)
15 Subaru Outback 43K
11 Subaru Outback 67K
98 Ford Taurus 100K (Gertie - Was Grandma's - drove it to church and shopping - really) Daughter's car now.
30 Model A Ford 2 Door Sedan (Sold) 0-60 in . . . Never reached 60

As said, you didn't do any damage with the ether, the engine never started and gave it a chance to hurt anything. I would not however recommend using it, as it lacks lubricant for the upper cylinder, and more importantly, diesels do not use throttle to control engine speed, they use fuel supply or starvation. Simply put, if you do get it to start, you better hope you have just a little fume in there 'cuz if theres any liquid buildup evaporating or such in the intake, that engine's going to take off & rev like it's never done before in runaway mode. I almost did that to a bulldozer once, scared the hell outta me. (owner of the dozer was too cheap to repair his glow plugs, was how he started it).

If it quit cranking as you say, you need to check your connections and cables, but most likely the battery is shot after having sat that long discharged, that's the fastest way to ruin a battery. You are probably experiencing whats called a ghost charge, where the battery seems ok, looks like it has 12v, but has no capacity left to store energy, so its a very quick short surface charge it holds, and suddenly it's just not there anymore.

Do what Jimmy said about spinning the engine with a wrench to make sure it still rotates, check your battery and cable connections, and put a voltmeter across your battery, if the battery goes to 8v or less during cranking, it is dead. If it looks ok and the wires are all ok, the starter may have decided to bite it.

__________________
Chris
64 190D R.I.P.
80 240D W/617 engine -for sale
82 240D -for sale