89 190e 2.6 stalled - won't start

[pepperref]

My 1989 190e 2.6 lost power and stalled on the freeway the other day. Had it towed home and tried to start it.

It cranks and sometimes stutters a few revs, but never quite turns over. I did notice puffs of white smoke occasionally when I stop cranking. I pushed down the throttle plate and found more white smoke accumulating inside the throttle housing.

The first thing I did was come over here and start searching for information.

So far, I found that the last indy shop had installed platinum resistor plugs as part of a tune-up. I quickly replaced those with the copper H9DC's. I verified that fuel pump 'buzz' at the right rear wheel well. I also found fuel in the line from the fuel distributor to the cold start valve.

In the process of nosing around, I broke off one nozzle of the thermo vacuum valve, but if I understand correctly, this is part of the emission control system and shouldn't affect starting.

Does the white smoke offer any clue as to what's going on inside the engine?

[190edude]

Sounds to me like you may have a blown head gasket. Check your water and you oil for cross contaminants.

[autozen]

There is an old saying in the biz. It's gotta be fuel or fire unless it's an MB V/8. Then it could be bent valves, but that's another story. Pull the air cleaner and spray a couple of shots of carb cleaner on the air intake plate. If it fires for a short time, you've got a fuel problem. If it doesn't fire check for spark. You may even have a problem in the idle air management circuit. It is also a good idea to follow the advice of 190E dude unless you are sure your gauges were normal.

Good luck,
Peter

[mctwin2kman]

First thing you do is pull the plugs and check the chamber's one at a time for coolant! Also check the oil and coolant bottle for oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil. My head gasket gave out slightly a few weeks back. I fixed it immediately and did not even start the car after I first noticed oil in the coolant bottle. But in the blowing of the head gasket it shot crap into the Pre-Cats and clogged them. So when I was done with the head gasket and had clogged pre-cats and did not know it I threw money into injectors and a new fuel filter, to find out that was not the issue. Then I finally disconnected the exhaust at the header and downpipe and the car ran great. Pulled the exhaust and gutted the pre-cats and cleaned the down pipes out of debri. Now the car runs better than it ever did. So my point here is before you kill it more, do some checking, then if all is well with the oil, coolant, chambers and timing chain proceed to the exhaust, first get a rubber mallet and tap the Cat's and Pre-Cats and listen for loose crap rattling around. If you hear something pull the Exhaust at the manifole to downpipe connection and see if it starts! Check fuel flow and all as well. As for you cold start injector having fuel in the line, I would assume it should, by design it shoudl be pre-charged with fuel and have no air in the line to work properly. That is how mine is!

[autozen]

Jamie has some good info, but I think he's getting the cart before the horse. I still suggest starting with the basics. Check if you are missing fuel or fire. If you have both you could do a compression test. Once you get it going and the power is low, you can easilly check for a restricted exhaust by hooking up a simple vacuum gauge. If vacuum is low at high rpms, you either have a restricted exhaust or retarded cam timing. If you report back with results, I'll help you if you want. I'm intimately familiar with th 89 180E 2.6. That is the exact car I bought for my 82 year old mother last year. Although I personnaly don't care for 190s, she loves the car. I bought the car for cheap, because the shop said it had no comp in 5 and 6. The head would have to come off. No biggie for me, but I did my own basic comp test and found #3 no comp. Cyls $5 and #6 were fine. Before jumping to conclusions, I pulled the valve cover to do a BASIC visual. The visual uncovered a broken valve spring on #3 cyl. I applied an air hold, took a spring from a scrap 3 liter I had in the corner, and had the car running in an hour. Remember the basics.

Peter

[mctwin2kman]

That is why I said to pull the plugs first, that can tell you an awefull lot just by looking at the plugs themselves. Look to see if there is coolant or fuel on the tip! Also check the wires, from one connector to the other not plugged into anything they should be around 1KOhm! Of course checking for spark is pretty simple if you have two people and like the occassional shock from touching the plug wire stupidly while touching the body of the car. Then once you verify all this you can move to the other things. What made me think of all this is that he stated he was getting white smoke! That is not good! And if it is coming from the intake then something is blocked or broken. On the M102 you can tell if the timing chain is still intact by just popping the oil cap, I would assume you can see it with the M103 oil cap removed as well. All in all start with the basics, like plugs, wire, cap, rotor!

[pepperref]

Thank you all for the replies. I haven't had the time to get back under the hood, but it's going to be beautiful here tommorrow, so I'll let you know what I find out.

Hank

[autozen]

Read the first post carefully. He did not say he had white smoke when the car died. He said he saw white smoke after cranking. This is just unburned fuel vaporizing. You can remove the air cleaner on your car, ground the ignition, crank several times, and duplicate what he saw. Do the basics first and check for fire and fuel.

Peter

[pepperref]

I checked for spark and noticed some spark 'gaps' or 'misses' after checking a couple of the wires. I removed the distributor and rotor and they looked pretty bad. The rotor 'blade' is pitted and looks like it was dragged sideways across an asphalt road. The contact points inside the cap all looked badly worn too.

Simply put, I haven't fixed it yet, but I clearly don't have reliable electrical contact or 'fire'.

I'll let you all know what happens after I replace these items.

[autozen]

Very good. You have isolated one problem, but you may still have a problem in the idle air management circuit.

Peter

[pepperref]

Here's the latest -

I can't find any oil contamination in the coolant.

I replaced the cap and rotor.

I replaced my broken thermo-vacuum valve.

I measured the spark plug wires. All measure about 1.1K ohms.

I measure the cold temperature sensor. Diagonal ohm measurements between pins are about 2.3K ohms per diagonal pair.

I removed the valve cover and found the timing chain intact.

The OVP relay 10A fuses are still intact.

The fuel pump buzzes so I'm guessing the fuel pump relay is OK.

I'm still getting white smoke in the throttle housing after cranking.

I removed a spark plug and smelled gasoline on the tip, so I believe I'm getting fuel.

Here's the newest thing - When the key is turned to the 'on' position, I hear a pronounced whooshing noise from the front of the engine above the alternator. I can actually feel the puff of air when I put my hand in that area. It sounds like something mechanical creates a blast of air that dies out after a second or two. I say mechanical because it reminds me of a fan slowing down. Is this normal or does it reveal a possible answer to my no-start problem.

[pepperref]

Bumped to update information. See previous post.

Thanks

[autozen]

I have no clue what the whooshing sound is. Replacing the rotor and cap were good things, but you are wasting your time checking temp sensors and plug wire resistance, etc. Based on your newest post of smelling fuel on the plugs, it is possible that you have now fuel fouled the plugs by trying to start it so many times. If this is the case the car will never start even if you correct the original problem. What you need to do now is pull all the plugs and dry them out or put in a fresh set. If you still have the platinum plugs, you could temporarilly install them. Then do what I recommend in post #3. If it runs on carb cleaner, you know it is a fuel problem. If it still doesn't want to run, it is spark or electronic. You can rule out electronic by pulling the computer out of the car. It is right behind the battery. There are two computers there, so if you are not sure which is which, pull them both. One is the ABS computer. On a running car you can remove both of these units and the car will run and the brakes will work. The car will be running like a basic CIS system, and the ABS light on the dash will light. Follow these steps and you should be able to determine if it's fuel or fire. Right now you don't have a clue to which it is.

Good luck,
Peter

[cc260E]

autozen,
I have a 260E 1988,
do I understand correctly that a W124 will run even with the Injection Control Unit unplugged?
thanks

[autozen]

CC260E,
That is correct. MB bought the Constant Injection System from Bosch in 1976. It was the first version and worked on air sensor plate position to adjust fuel amount to match air flow. There was a warmup regulator that lowered control pressure for a cold engine and acted like a choke. To increase power, increase fuel mileage, and reduce emissions engineers developed the oxygen sensor. This sensor that is in every modern car continually monitors oxygen in the exhaust and through the CIS computer trims the fuel quantity. You can remove the computer and you will have the basic 1976 system. The car won't run very well cold and power and mileage will suffer, but you can drive the car. The same goes for ABS. While working on the electronics on my mother's 89 190E 2.6, the ABS computer kept getting in my way, so I took it out and put it in the trunk. The ABS light stayed on and ABS was not available, but the brakes worked fine.

Peter