Quote:
Originally Posted by mbgingerbread
Mercedesotto;
The drive from New York to New Orleans sounds like a great trip in a car purchased for under 500. Question is, can you spend 5k before the rally?
My only suggestion for your basic troubleshooting is to first check that you have clean, free fuel lines and a gas tank filter which is clean. Quite a few of the posts contain references to the fuel lines and the filters in the tank, at the fuel pump and B-4 the FI pump.
One other thing to look for is wiring from the starter and or alternator in good (unburnt) condition. Best of luck.
 MBG |
Technically speaking, you're allowed to spend whatever is necessary for "safety", but that didn't preclude some dudes from Massachusetts dragging a $250 1955 Plymouth Belvedere out of a field and spending $1500 rebuilding the automatic transmission. That's sort of a special case. Heck, $500 is double the price limit from the last few years.
Me spending $5k is simply not a possibility, especially since the car realistically would only be worth about $2k even with all the mechanical stuff buttoned up. I'm an inveterate cheapskate. (yes, I realize this does not bode well for Benz ownership. My other baby is a '77 MGB, which is actually shockingly cheap to run)
I'm holding out on setting a budget for the Benz until I go through all the cheap-as-free troubleshooting. It did have new shocks and new brakes within the last year, and the brakes work very well...better than anything else on the car! Who knows, if this thing winds up running OK after a weekend or two of tinkering, I may polish it up and see if it'll fetch $1200.
I'll check out the fuel filters. The fuel pump seems to be quite noisy; is this normal?