Wont start/run
 

My daughter has a 89 300E, w/185,000 Miles. She's been having some slight troubles starting over the last couple of months, but not enough to even mention it to me.

Then she called me, stranded. It would fire and then die, repeatedly and never stay running. She always runs on empty and gets cheap gas, so it seemed to me like a new fuel filter was in order. I've worked on this car now for a couple of weeks with no success. :-(

If I use starting fluid, it will start but it will require a careful foot dance to keep running. Through this I've taken it up to temperature, but it makes no difference.

Here's what I've replaced so far:

1) Fuel Filter
2) Fuel Pump Relay
3) Fuel Accumulator

The accumulator seemed to help a little, as it started without using starting fluid a couple of times, but it still does not stay running.

My next thought is the Over-voltage relay, but I'm starting to question if I'm going in the wrong direction.

Is there a method to know which step to take next?

check fuel pump. can you hear it come on?

if you haven't already done so,i would check out the following

distributor cap and rotor,spark plugs and the spark plug wires.