Car has been running fine; replaced OVP a week ago; drove twice today, then a 5 minute run; was in the store 10 minutes max; came out and she just turns over and over; had it towed home; have fuel pressure to distributor, hear pump running, OVP fuse good, under hood fuses good; have orange spark; putting fluid straight in results in same condition. There has been no stuttering, stalling, just get in crank the key and go. Ideas?

so what is the fuel pressure? you say if you put fuel in there is no differance?
then you got a spark/compression/timing problem.

george

okay, what would create a timing mishap so suddenly? There was no warning, not stalling, no missing. Something would need to be seriously amiss to lose compression.

maybe a jumped chain? just throwing a few things out there. there are procedures to check a no start. check for good spark and its proper timing. check fuel pressure and flow. check compression. then go from there. remember we are doing this without having the car in front of us so it will take steps.

george

Love going through the process; putting it in the garage tonight so I can get after it; interesting addition: I noticed this morning turning it over an immediate gas smell. David

CPS just went perhaps? Without that telling you where top dead center is, the engine has no idea when to fire? Are you getting spark? - pull a plug and check...

__________________
87 300E
202k on the clock

I have fuel pressure and an orange spark; have not checked timing yet; what pray tell is the CPS? Ah, just did a check - crank position sensor. I had my Porsche ready to drive out and put the MB in the heated garage, could not get it to crank, charged the battery and when reconnecting the cables found the ground clamp broken. So much for tonight, I will start again tomorrow, probably take some time off work. I had a 944 that drove me nuts doing something very similar to this, turns out it was the brain, released it from its hold downs under the passenger footwell and shook it to get it going again until the new one arrived. Look forward to your response. David

I need to change the Crankshaft Position Sensor (CPS) and have found several on the web for my 88 300E, one at ******** Arizona for around $60, but the others, Rock Auto have different brands listed for almost what the dealer is charging, $140. I am hesitant to go with the cheap one, but that is not my real question. The manual says that I should erase stored faults which may occur because of disconnected cables.

Does anyone know how I go about clearing the stored faults? Aziz