I've been searching the archive the last days and have found quite a lot of threads issuing similar problems. I haven't ( yet ) found any that I can relate to my problem.
When I bought the car ( W124 300TE-24 1991 M104.98 ) I went on a testdrive, ( what else ). After appx. 10 minutes of driving it started to hesitate when throttle was rapidly engaged. Like when you do a kickdown and it takes some millisecs. before anything actually happends. The hesitations continued and in the end it stopped. It started up again and idled ok but when I pushed the accelerator down it hesitated again and stopped. I started it another time and run on idle back to the reseller.
After they had a look at it ( for appx 1.5 hour ) I came back and did another test drive. This time everything was ok and we suspected that it had been the engine washing they had did that caused the problem. ( Moisture )
I took the car home and it run for about 2 months ( 1500km ).
One day going shopping the problem came back. Exact same behaviour and about the same time after starting up from cold. ( 10 min ) I managed to limp into a gas station and did some checking. It wouldn't start at all this time. I waited for appx. 15 minutes ( waiting for a friend ) and did another try - it started. It run without missfiring or any other indication of fault. I went shopping, and then home again ( 12km ).
After a week or so I started her up and let her idle for appx 10 minutes while I was brushing of snow and ice. ( This is Sweden you know
) Took her for a test drive round the block and when I was almost at home - same thing. I was in kind of a hurry this time and walked home to have lunch and went back 15 minutes later. Started her up like nothing.
Another week later, started the car letting it idle for a while. I was only about to move the car so I could get to my 230TE. Then it suddenly start missfiring then revs went down and a sudden stop.
This time it would not start so I checked that the fuelpumps where ok, at least they sounded ok. I also checked that I had sparks by unhooking one of the cables and connected it to a sparkplug I had for spare.
I have been on the Swedish forum with this problem and received the following ideas:
Fuel pump relay - I don't have it on my engine, the MAS controls the fuelpumps.
OVP relay - As I have a car with ASR, I have a 'Electronic accelerator control unit'.
I'm trying getting hold of a Bosch diagnostics instrument to read out any fault codes. But I'll have to wait about two weeks before I can have one here. In the mean time I will try ( if it works on my engine ) to get codes by using the 'pulse counting method'.
I think that there obviously is something in the fuel delivery chain. It might be the cam position sensor that is faulty. ( I think ) I had a similar problem with my Jeep Cherokee but this engine wouldn't start at all until I cleaned the connectors to the sensor.
Anyone?
/Mel ( aka nivis )