Mercedes Wagon Died this AM (300TD, W123)

The Krautbeaterwagen, which had been performing flawlessly the past 7 months or so since I bought it, finally broke down this morning. I started it up to drive to work, and it fired up with no issue, having sat for the long holiday weekend un-touched. It got about a mile down the road, and then it just gradually started slowing down, and stopped. I tried restarting it, and could get it to sort-of stumble, with my foot to the floor, for a few seconds, but it would not sustain combustion.

Took the shoe-leather express home and grabbed the wife's Jimmy, leaving the Merc on the side of the road. Planning on flat-towing it home tonight. Any thoughts as to why it would die like that, without warning? Fuel filters were new back when I bought it- about Jan/Feb of this year, maybe 12,000 miles on them. The only other thing I could think of was a loose vacuum line causing the fuel pump to cut off, but a check under the hood didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary. There was fuel visible in the small filter by the injector pump.

???

I would think fuel pump, but am not really familiar with these cars.

If it's a 617 it just needs air and fuel. Must not be getting one of those two.

bearmtnmartin wrote: If it's a 617 it just needs air and fuel. Must not be getting one of those two.

Exactly. It's not even a turbo. There's fuel in the little plastic filter, not sure about upstream. My recollection is there's a pre-pump somewhere that gets the fuel up to the main injector pump, but I can't recall where exactly that is.

Fuel filters (there is a little pre-filter by the side of the injection pump, and the spin on filter), or it could be the hand primer pump. If your primer pump is the white type you need to twist to unlock then replace it with the new black style. The old ones can let air into the fuel system.

bgkast wrote: Fuel filters (there is a little pre-filter by the side of the injection pump, and the spin on filter), or it could be the hand primer pump. If your primer pump is the white type you need to twist to unlock then replace it with the new black style. The old ones can let air into the fuel system.

I saw that somewhere on another forum. Where is the primer located? Who sells the replacements- peachparts?

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

It's right next to the pre-filter on the side of the injection pump. Peachparts would sell replacements.

Follow up...

So, I'm driving the wife's car due to the Benz dying, and on the way home, tooling along at 50 or so on the Baltimore beltway, the Jimmy just dies. I put the flashers on, pull over, and shut the key off. Turn the key and vroom runs perfect. So I pull out into traffic, go another 10 miles or so, and it does again. This time I pop it into neutral, turn the key, and again, it fires up. At this point I'm thinking maybe it needs gas (it had about 1/4 tank) so I go fill it up, and drive home. The whole rest of the way home, though, it sputters and seems down on power. But, it made it.

So I get home, Katie gets mad because I broke her Jimmy, I call up the local mechanic who I let deal with things I don't feel like dealing with, and drive the Jimmy over. Katie straps our baby into the Suburban and follows me over. We drop off the Jimmy, drive back to the Mercedes (remember the Mercedes?), hook a tow strap to it, and flat tow it home with the Suburban- Katie steering and braking the Benz. Ironically, when we went to tow the Benz home, there was now an older VW Passat sitting in front of it, also apparently broken down. Weird. Anyway...

Get the Benz home, and I'm peering under the hood, checking hoses, etc. I decided to try priming the injector pump. The injector pump primer screws into the injector pump. It was loose. @%$#$. Tighten it, prime it, fires up, drove it down the road and back, no problem. Drove it to work this morning. Phew. At least it didn't cost anything to fix, though I'm going to replace the primer anyway (this one looks very old).

So now we're just awaiting prognosis on the Jimmy. I suspect fuel pump, because they always "JUST NEEDS FUEL PUMP CHANGED", and also I just filled the tank, so naturally that would be the problem. :-P

The Passat just thought your Mercedes would be lonely and wanted to give its owner some exercise to boot.

ssswitch wrote: The Passat just thought your Mercedes would be lonely and wanted to give its owner some exercise to boot.

It must have been some weird cosmic coincidence. "Ze German cars, Zey break down HERE!"

Just ordered a new injector priming pump from peachparts. $18. Also ordered a new "cigar" hose, 11 bucks. Mine's cracked, been meaning to replace. Some say you can just use regular fuel line, but for eleven dollars, why not use what the good Teutonic engineers intended?

Passat hat gesagt: Ah, hier hat Meine Freunde kaputt machen! Ich muss auch hier kaputt machen!

(you must deal with my bad German!)

Google translate is hysterical: "Passat has said: Ah, here is make My friends broke! I have to do here broken!"

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Follow up... So now we're just awaiting prognosis on the Jimmy. I suspect fuel pump, because they always "JUST NEEDS FUEL PUMP CHANGED", and also I just filled the tank, so naturally that would be the problem. :-P

This story took a weird turn on the Jimmy...

After we got back from the LeMons race, I called up the mechanic, who still had the Jimmy, and he said they'd run into a problem. His source for the fuel pump quoted the price at $513. JUST FOR THE PUMP !!! I did a quick RockAuto search and found about 20 different pumps, all under $300. For whatever reason the garage could only buy from Napa, though. Since the race was over and the need to get the Jimmy repaired not as urgent (the wife, it turns out, loves her Suburban grin) we went and retrieved the Jimmy, gave the mechanic $40 for his troubleshooting, and nursed the limping SUV home.

When I get a chance, I'm going to drop the tank and do it myself. Interestingly (and this was the reason the garage was quoting a high price on the fuel pump), the two door Jimmy fuel pump is DIFFERENT than the 4 door one. Why? I guess because the tank is mounted in a different location on the 2 door. So I need to make sure the pump is a 2-door specific pump. Which, still....I can find a Bosche 2-door pump for $130. Even if I end up replacing some lines, buying a special tool (which I'm sure I'll need, because GM), and getting a new filter, this is a sub-$200 job.

Oh, the Merc is still running fine. The other day I hauled almost a half a ton of car parts home with it. Yay, Benz!

I'm gonna say there are VERY few cars on the road that can be fixed like an older Diesel Mercedes.

Couldnt buy the pump for my 98 s10 as just the pump. Had to purchase pickup and all at 288 bucks. Same exact unit my bosses 98 silverado uses. Gm did some weird E36 M3 with fuel pumps un the 90s.

dropstep wrote: Couldnt buy the pump for my 98 s10 as just the pump. Had to purchase pickup and all at 288 bucks. Same exact unit my bosses 98 silverado uses. Gm did some weird E36 M3 with fuel pumps un the 90s.

It's like they were punishing the world for making them dump the quadrajet for fuel injection.