This car was driven into my yard, now it will not run. I checked the glowplugs and I have power through all five. Car will fire but won't quite run. Over on the biodiesel forum I was told that the primer pumps are known to leak air. I put a new one on, just the primer pump not the whole housing. Still wouldn't start. cracked injector lines and did have a lot of air. bled the air retightened and battery died. recharged still won't quite start. I see no signs of leaking diesel anywhere. This car was run throughout this last summer, not a daily driver, and was known to be very hard starting. once running it runs well. Any ideas on what to look for?

Any help would be very much appreciated
thanks in advance
pizzaman

I would spray a little wd40 penatrating oil into the intake when rolling engine over and see if engine does some solid cylinder firing. Do not forget to glow cycle it first of course. An additional set of hands may help to crank and spray. Since fuel is coming out at injectors when cranking it is pretty safe to guess that injection pump shutoff is open at this stage. If no action at all with the penatrating oil you may want to check valve settings first and a compression check after if they are ok. I am starting to believe a few previous owners must have thought these engines had hydralic lifters and the valves may not have been adjusted for fiteen years in some instances.

And you are burning veggie oil in cold Winter weather??

Will be interesting to see how many no-start problems occur among the grease burning crowd in months ahead.

No I am not burning grease yet, I want to get it running as it should before I do anthing like that. Grease is the intent however. I have a 1986 F250 that I have been running Grease in since May 2005 over 18,000 miles, no starting issues to date. On thanksgiving day it started right up when it was 14 F outside and was running on grease after about 5-10 minutes warm-up idle in the driveway and less than 3 miles driving. Engine was up to full temp and oil was 160 F at the ip.
Designed and built my own system, Bought plans from Dana Linscott and modified the plans from there. So far so good. The old truck is used to deliver pizza at my pizzaria seven days a week. This is the intent for the benz as it will use about 1/3 of the grease as the truck does.

BTW on Thankgiving day I didn't have the truck plugged in at 14 F and no problem starting. Following day I did have it plugged in, temp about the same, and it fired up so fast is scared me LOL. I don't think the engine rolled all the way over once before it was running. Suprized me as it does have 206,000 miles on it.

Barry123400,
I did as you suggested with the penetrating oil and the car started up. I let it warm up to temp before shutting down. Fired right back up, Let it sit for 5 hours, will not start again. It fires and almost runs but not quite, When the boys get home from school I will have them turn it over and check for air. I don't see any leaks of diesel anywhere. However when it was running I could see bubbling from the threads of #3 injector. (It was wet from prior bleeding of air). The diesel that was still on the engine from this prior bleeding was bubbling around the threads.
I have a set of injectors on the way as I thought I was get them rebuilt and put them in prior to the veggie conversion. I am thinking that when I get the injectors in my hand I will pull the injectors from the car and check the compression before I worry about getting them rebuilt.

I know you said you check the glow plugs but what was the resistance on each one? I say this because it sounds very much like a glow plug issue.

If it was an aie leak problem then I wouldn't expect that it would start when warm either.

__________________
1977 300D Lost coolant while someone else was driving
1983 300D Can't run without oil
1985 300SD (gone but not forgotten)
1990 300TE 4matic Sold
1991 Yamaha Venture
1975 Kawsaki 250 triple
1974 Honda 200CL
1951 8N Ford
2008 Wildfire 650C

The new style GPs will make a big difference, thats the first thing I would do. Also It needs to turn over at least 100rpm so a good healthy starter motor is a must also.

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1985 Euro 240D 5 spd 140K
1979 240D 5 spd, 40K on engine rebuild
1994 Dodge/Cummins, 5 spd, 121K
1964 Allice Chalmers D15 tractor
2014 Kubota L3800 tractor
1964 VW bug

"Lifes too short to drive a boring car"

Just a few random thoughts as would hate for you to find them the hard way. Lent my 77 300d to one of my daughters a couple of years ago when she was visiting on vacation. Told me all the guys wave at her when she drives it. Never observed the women waving to me when I drive it unfortunatly. Assume she thought the pump linkage advance on dash was instrument cluster light potentiometer. Wonder why she would try to turn those dash lights up? Anyways the next time I tried to start it it was very hard to do. I had always left the control in the same spot and she had turned idle speed down. Kind of suprised me a little that it made such a difference in warm weather starting. I also do not know if the penatrating oil is more volitile than the regular diesel but if not much more it would indicate that air entering your system may be a big factor. Do not expect to see fuel leakage at the air leak site if there is one. Its usually too busy letting air enter to leak fuel. Or another way I look at it is by the time all the air has entered at that point there is no longer any fuel in that immediate area to leak. Air leaks are easy to understand and sometimes a little tricky to find but what a difference they can make. You now know your glow plug circuit is operating at reasonable efficiency probably and you have reasonable compression hopefully. I still think at some stage you should just check those valve clearances as they are important and known to contribute to hard starting as well. If nothing else you want valve clearances in a reasonable range to get the maximum performance out of this non turbo engine. Not a big deal to quickly check them for clearance. Just takes a feeler gauge and very litle time. Of course if they are way out it will take substantially longer to set them. I am also a believer on checking out amount of chain stretch and injection pump timing just in case engine has had only deffered maintenance for a long period. These cars are old and a lot of them have just been driven and driven with little care given for years. The old adage if it's not really broken do not fix it taken too seriously perhaps. Keep posting how things are going with the new gem. Too many times the threads peter out with the final resolution unknown. Kind of like an unsolved puzzle kind of thing.

wow do I feel stupid ,but, what is this pump linkage advance on the dash. Would this be the thing on the left of the steering column that I have been fiddleing with just because it was there? Something to do while waiting for the glow plugs to cycle. Please don't take me as too dumb, it is my first benz.
All I checked on the glow plugs was that it was getting juice through all of them. I will say that there was a leaf on the bar that connects them and it caught fire. That was neat. As far as the starter, it is new, has started this beast once so far LOL. Battery is new also. My accountant gave me this car for converting his truck to run on Veggie. I did it for fun, didn't want or expect any payment and he suprised me by pulling into my driveway and said here, thanks for converting my truck.
I just can't wait to get this thing going, be the first pizzaria in my area delivering in a benz, LOL
Sorry for getting off topic, its late, I'm tired, It will be a few days before I can mess with it but I will definately keep you informed.
Thanks a bunch
If you are ever in Belmont, NY stop into Little Italy of Belmont, lunch is on me.

Havn't read all post.....but....pull all the injectors....turn key on...watch for glow plug tip turning red in each hole..........betcha only got one burnin'



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When it does that, keep the starter engaged until the engine is running. Most people don't realize it, but these starters are designed to handle that situation.

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Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
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Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
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Well, up to about 15 seconds of cranking is probably safe. Replacing the starter is a real PITA, so don't get too carried away.

Craig,
I do keep cranking it, and yes the starter swap was a PITA.

I finally got to the garage today to look into this car a little. I pulled the injectors to do a compression test and I don't have the correct adapters to hook up my borrowed compression tester I did check for voltage across all glow plugs and all looks well, however when the injectors were out I hit the glow plugs and only one was smoking (burning the fuel off it, working in other words) so I will change the other four. the only one that seemed to be working it the one that I changed. The return lines were all wet and tore off, return line one #1 injector basically fell off. The tips of the injectors are carboned up. I bought a set of used injectors off ebay and soaked them in acetone for a few minutes and then brushed with a brass "toothbrush" (that'll get rid of plague) lol. The ebay injectors came nice and clean but one of then has an intentation on the flat surface.
On Sat. I plan to put the cleaned injectors in, new return lines on, and install the other four glow plugs. at this point I believe that it is just a glow plug issue. I believe this because I can get it to fire on one cylinder but not start.

Did these cars come without a block heater? I have looked and looked and can not find a plug on this thing for a block heater. This being my first benz I am not even sure where to look or if it would be anything like I would call normal. (in the freeze plug whole with a cord coming off)
I'll check tomorrow to see if I am missing something otherwise I will post again on Sat evening and let you know how I made out

240 dieseldog,
It was -2 F this morning and my F 250 greaser fired right up. didn't even crank for five seconds. Ran slightly rough at first but I went back in the house to get the boys for school and she was purring like a kitten when I got back out to it. It was idleing for around 10 minutes and I switched to veggie in about 5-7 miles. In warmer weather I usually switch in about 2-4 miles. I hope the rest of the winter goes this well