PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - the euro 250 lives! Drives great...WON'T IDLE! (and other Solex stuff)

t walgamuth · #3 05-24-2008, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blankenship

so, my w123 gasser (1982 euro 250 that recently got a 2nd lease on life) won't idle for anything.

it's so strange...she drives well, and the throttle is responsive. sometimes it's taken a squirt of starter fluid to get her going, but once warm she starts right up (though she immediately develops a high/low fluctuation and will die quickly). strange, when stone cold she seems to operate better, but only for a block or two. afterwords, she'll die at every stop sign/light and when parked, unless you put your foot on the gas and rev/coax her.

i've checked all the vacuum lines, and they hold pressure.
i've checked around the base of the Solex carb for leaks by spraying WD40, and haven't been able to affect and change.
the accelerator pump seems to be working/spraying fine, and she's got new plugs and wires.

one thing i've noticed is that the secondaries (the flaps over the larger barrels (?)) seem never to open, and appear to stick a bit. the vacuum dashpot keeps them pulled closed no matter how high the car's revved. when the car is shut off and i push on the secondaries, they do not operate smoothly, but, rather have a couple 'snags' and seem to stick at a few spots...if you open them all the way, they'll most likely seize and stay there. could this be my problem area, or would it only cause poor performance at very high throttle?

thoughts on all this would really be appreciated.

I would have not thought that using wd40 is the way to go on testing for vac leaks. I would use ether.

It sounds/acts like a vac leak to me. Did you put a vac guage on it? That will tell you a lot in a hurry if you have one. If you don't have one you owe it to yourself to buy one if you are thinking you will continue to operate the car with the carbs.

I had similar carbs on my old BMW bavaria and swapped them out for one Q jet. There used to be a q jet clone that Edelbrock made which might be worth considering, and there are weber conversion kits available from JAM. Folks here have tried both in the last year or so and there is at least one thread on the general subject.

Good luck.

Tom W