Friends 77 300D, no start.

I just did valves, fuel filters recently done & lines bled, recent oil change, new starter. Pencil style glo plugs, clean when they come out, he says. No compression #'s yet.

No start, grinds starter, fires on a few cylinders, almost gets going. He's wearing out his battery & starter, charge, grind, charge, grind, etc.

Doesn't glow, glow ckt doesn't activate in this weather (70's) he said. Once it starts he says, will start easy till it gets cold. Verified that my 85 240D glows for about 10 sec in this weather, starts as soon as you hit it.

Tried hitting the plugs direct w/ 12V, then cranking, no luv. Thought better of hitting plugs w/ 16V battery charger, don't want them that hot.

Ideas? I'm thinking GP relay, don't think he wants to throw money at it. Offered it to me for scrap price, cash & marital status do not allow.

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CC: NSA

All things are burning, know this and be released.

82 Benz 240 D, Kuan Yin
12 Ford Escape 4wd

You're four times

It's hard to

more likely to

concentrate on

have an accident

two things

when you're on

at the same time.

a cell phone.

www.kiva.org It's not like there's anything wrong with feeling good, is there?

Absolutely a glow plug issue, as they should be coming on. The '77 model originally came with loop plugs, so someone did a conversion at some point. If you bypassed the relay to energize the plugs and it still didn't start, this points to either several (all?) bad glow plugs or a fault in the circuit. Check each plug for resistance to ground and go from there.

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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.

How are the plugs wired? How did you get 12 volts to them all? If the glow plugs are all working, 12 volts to them should get them hot. Is he using the original relay with 12 volts coming from the strip fuse holder on the firewall just behind the engine? The only other areas to check are compression, air and fuel.

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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