i recently picked up a mercedes for my 16yr. old son. it had sat for 10yrs,so needless to say it was a lot of fun getting it to run.(the gas cap was missing and the fuel turned to sludge) after a few days of flushing the crud out of the system and tearing the zeniths apart,i got it to run fairly well. now it tends to run fine for a while,then abruptly quit. most times it will restart after giving the throttle a couple pumps.sometimes it will stall at a traffic stop as if it's fouled the plugs;last night on the freeway it acted like it was running out of gas. during my initial attempt to fire the car i bypassed the ignition module under the battery(now i need a diagram for the wiring to the unit) is that a problem? it seems to have plenty of fuel when i remove the lines to the carbs,but it still acts as if it's running out of gas. this happens very abruptly like you turned off the key. HELP! (p.s.,where can i get a wiring diagram for the disconnected control unit?) thanks,M.M.

had cut-off problems with my '67 250. drove me nuts tinkering with carb controls, checking points, etc. then decended into cut-off immed. after start-up. problem was the ign. switch would not stay in 'on' position. found/solved this by running a wire to coil from '+' term. of batt. with on/off switch in line. as this is very easy to do, you may want to try first to help isolate ignition from fuel problem.

I had a 72 250/8, and loved it. I suspect what you have is some clear varnish from the old fuel intermittently plugging up the carb jets. Take them apart again and soak the carbs and jets in carb cleaner (xylene, tolueme,'aromatic solvents', paint remover .

If I remember right, the fuel pump is a mechanical one, and it so replace it the diaphragm will be bad, and the check valves full of varnish just waiting to plug the jets up again.