88 300E Dying out
 

My 88 300e died this morning. It started sputtering and popping. I noticed when I start it when the engine is cold it hesitates and has a miss. I just put on a new fuel distributor a month ago and it was running fine. I noticed on the last tune up the that distibutor cap had a burned place in the middle. I had it replaced as well. The wires are about a year old. Any suggestions on which way to go on solving the problem and getting my baby back on the road? It has 206,000 mile on it and runs great when it's running.

So now it wont start at all?

Remove the air cleaner and check your idle air hoses. one might have popped off.

Fuel, spark, compression. Either of these missing will give you a problem. With the engine off, pull off a sparkplug wire, insert a phillips head screwdriver into the connector inside the boot and hold the handle while someone cranks the engine, be prepared if the engine should start unexpectedly. You should see a nice blue spark jump from the shank of the screwdriver when you bring it near a ground (metal that is not insulated from the chassis), If that works, with the engine off, slowly loosen the fuel pipe at the fuel distributor to your cold start injector, If it sprays fuel, you probably had fuel pressure prior to loosening it. If you have fuel pressure, check the compression in all cylinders.

Of course there are more precise ways to measure all of this; these are just some down and dirty suggestions.

I'll bet you it is the coil! Same thing happened on my '87 300E
Anziani
'93 300CE
'95 E420