W210 E300 No start.
 

1998 W210 E300.

Sunday I was loaded up and about to leave the track for home, insert key, Glow, turn key to start... Nothing. battery is fine.
I did this several more times over a 10 minute period. I tried neutral/park/ and neutral again suspecting a trans switch. Still nothing. No noise no indication of life nothing. Everything else operated as normal. Everything on the dash cycled as normal, glow plug sequence appeared normal. The Climate control fan was blowing strong (power seemed ok). But turn key and NOTHING.

After 10 minutes, finally another attempt and the 'start sequence' executed.
I drove 5 hours home stopping twice and never shutting the car off.

Monday morning, it started fine.

Any insight?
Suggestions?

No start meaning, no crank or no fire? If no crank, I would suspedt the starter solenoid. Like in the old days, takes a couple taps with a hard object to bring it back online.

Only problem is that it's totally covered by the intake.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/122465-1998-e300-dt-intermittent-no-start-help.html?highlight=1998+start+relay

Could also be the key switch or EIS module, but my fix is easy to try and cheap too.

Also, I think the relay in question is part of the K40 relay set, so if you have not replaced that recently just replace the whole K40...it is located in the same box under the hood.