I was ready to pick up my car from the body shop when they called and said it won’t start. They think it may be out of fuel even with the gauge at a quarter so they put in a few gallons and still nothing. I come over and put in another 4 gallons and after a half hour of bleeding and cranking, bleeding and cranking, it manages to run, albeit very rough, for the next 5 minutes after which it smoothes out for a minute or two and then runs rough again. Could I still have hidden pockets of air in the system causing it to run rough intermittently? How long should I let it idle to clear out the trapped air? I told the shop I'd wait to pick it up sunday when there is no traffic as it has no power when it was running rough. Could the injectors be going bad? It always ran fine before except now that I think about it, the idle wasn’t as smooth as most other diesels I’ve driven, even with over 200K miles. Can the injectors be taken apart and cleaned or should I get rebuilt ones. I see 300D injector nozzles selling for $17-$25 and rebuilt injectors for $35-$43. What is the best way to go? Can just the nozzles be changed and the rest of the injector be cleaned?

When you go and pick up the car bring both a new pre-filter and a new fuel filter. If the car has been in for body work chances are the fuel is bad or has a bad fungus. Does the pre-filter have chunks of black gook in it? If so you may need to drain and clean the fuel tank. The other thing is that cars in body shops are always started up and run for 1 minute to move the cars around the shop then stopped. Thats about the worst thing you can do to a pre-combustion chamber on a Benz diesel. You need a couple cans of Diesel Purge run through the system, a couple of new fuel filters, a clean tank of fuel, and a thorough Italian tune-up. Don't be quick to condemn the injectors.

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Orland Park, IL
1985 300SD 215,000 miles

OK, Bill, what is an Italian Tuneup ? How does it differ from an Irish Tuneup ? Is it more expensive than a Swiss Tuneup ? Does it take longer than a Mexican Tuneup ? Is it more emotional than a German Tuneup ? This should be enough to get you in big trouble.... Greg

And Bill's exactly right in his instructions..... Haven't heard that term for a looong time. Corresponds with "Drive it like it's stolen".

Change the filters, drain the tank, fresh fuel, and flog it unmercifully....... it'll be fine.

Jim

ITALIAN TUNEUPS ARE GRRREAT!

I had to make a fast trip to San Diego a few months back. On the way out there, I enjoyed myself and kept the speed to 65 or so to save fuel. I managed about 31 mpg. On the way back, I had my son in law, my daughter, my 6 mo. old grandson, and a Brittany Spaniel. Plus all of their clothes and as much other stuff as we could pack in. I was getting good and sick with the flu by this time and it was far from comfortable with the car loaded so heavily. I picked up the speed until we were doing 80 or so. We ran this way for hours and I noticed that large puffs of black soot were coming out the back. The car began to run MUCH smoother and has continued to do so since the trip.

Dave
1982 300D
288,000 miles

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Dave

1982 300D
352,000 miles

Whenever I get on any entrance ramp to the expressway I tromp on it hard and run it up to the redline before it shifts to 4th. When I drive in the city, I run it in 3rd only to keep the revs up in the 2500+ range. For some reason, these cars absolutely crave high revs! Gotta hand it to the German engineers who designed these things.

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Orland Park, IL
1985 300SD 215,000 miles

billrok,

What is it about starting a diesel and shutting it off cold that's bad for it? Coincidently, I've always kept mine running when I go in the store, post office, etc. I live in a nice area and people are used to seeing my car running in the parking lot when I'm only there for a few minutes. I've always just tried to minimize my starts. I've read this comment about shutting them off cold but never understood what the damage is that's caused by it.

John