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Car Forum / Mercedes-Benz Cars / April 20081983 300D gas flow problems
Hello all, I seem to be having a problem with the flow of my diesel fuel. The car will drive really well and then, sometimes, the car will behave as if it is starved for fuel. Here is what I can tell thusfar...any ideas? 1) it seems to get worse when the tank is low. the problem for me is that my gauge is funky and so i never really know how full it is. but yesterday i added plenty of fuel and the car acted up today. then I added more fuel and it got me home fine. 2) the line going from the big filter downward and towards the smaller filter seems to be swollen and is a bit soft. 3) the smaller filter, when the car is misbahaving, barely has any fuel in it. the drips into it are very slow. then, it will fill up nicely and the car will run fine. Thats about all I can tell you guys. I have spare filters and can get the lines if that would help. I want to start with the most obvious answer before going in deeper. Am I on the right track? Thanks in advance. aaron > Hello all, > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > aaron Maybe air in the lines. I don't know where your lift pump is, but if the filter is on the suction side of the pump, any leaks will pull air in, maybe in excess of the banjo bolt's capacity to remove it. Are you running biodiesel in any percentage? High percentage mixes are supposed to rot your fuel lines unless you use viton. Are you running SVO or WVO? That's a whole nother story as well. Changing a fuel filter is easy enough. When was the last time you did it? I have not changed the filters yet. I bought the car in November and, until recently, did not think about changing them. I want to, but my one concern is how to stop the fuel from spilling out all over everything. Is it easy? Seems like it. On Apr 10, 8:21 pm, "moon...@gmail.com" <moon...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello all, > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > - Show quoted text - You have to pinch the fuel hoses to stop the fuel flow while you are working on the filter and hoses. Change all the hoses while you are at it... use MB or equivalent hose. Diesel will eat regular hose in no time. Sounds like you got too much algae in your fuel system. You need to put Startron into your fuel tank. If the little filter is not getting fuel fast enough, that most likely means that you have a clog at the strainer screen at the bottom of your fuel tank. The little filter is pretty early in the fuel system. It goes tank, plastic fuel line, rubber hose, little filter, rubber hose, plastic hose, large filter, plastic hose, lift pump, plastic hose, injection pump, etc... So I doubt it is air in the lines if there is sufficient fuel in the tank since that section of fuel hose is higher at the tank than it is on the engine compartment end. I'd bet it is the strainer. This is a pain to clean properly. Run the tank as low as you can, then unscrew the strainer from the bottom of the tank. The tank is behind the rear seat and is accessible from underneath the car. The fuel line will be coming out of the strainer. Be ready to catch the fuel that will dump out. Alternatively, you could do what I did when my strainer clogged up. I pulled the rubber hose off of the fuel line coming forward, near the small filter, and wrapped masking tape around the hose so I could put my lips over it without tasting diesel. Then I put it in my mouth and blew as hard as I could to try to get any crap away from that screen. It worked. If you have compressed air, that would be a better option. (I was on the road.) I am not aware of a vetn on that tank. Assuming that there isn't one, I'd suggest taking the fuel filler cap off if you were to put that much air in the tank. I doubt the tank could take any real pressure, and if you pressurize it successfully, and there is no vent, it will shoot the fuel out pretty quickly through that fuel line until it vents off a volume of fuel equal to the volume of air you put in there. That could be messy. Good luck, Bill Probably some algae on the pick up screen inside the fuel tank. Algae can grow in diesel fuel if there's water present. There are products to kill the algae as Tiger noted. Once killed it will fill the fuel filters so kill it first, then change the filters as needed. The fuel gauge may then come back to life without algae growing on it.  Signature© 2008 T.G.Lambach. Publication in any form requires prior written permission. On Apr 11, 11:45 am, "-->> T.G. Lambach <<--" <"T.G. Lambach at NoHamorSpamcomcast.net"> wrote: > Probably some algae on the pick up screen inside the fuel tank. Algae > can grow in diesel fuel if there's water present. There are products to [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > © 2008 T.G.Lambach. Publication in any form requires prior written > permission diesel doesn't have an awful taste, it just lingers. WVO makes me gag. > Probably some algae on the pick up screen inside the fuel tank. Algae > can grow in diesel fuel if there's water present. There are products to > kill the algae as Tiger noted. > Once killed it will fill the fuel filters so kill it first, then change > the filters as needed. The fuel gauge may then come back to life without > algae growing on it. Right on the button TGL. I drove a 240D in Europe for 13 years and never had a problem with the fuel lines. Then I bought a new 240D here in USA and after about 18 months it would often lose power. I soon learned that if I shut down the engine for a few hours it would be ok. Finally, I learned that algae was growing in the tank. At one point I brought it to a radiator shop where they removed all the contents of the tank and it looked like a big forest of brown seaweed. I flushed out the fuel lines, changed the filters and, from then on, I used a fuel additive (Red Lion is one brand) to the tank each time I bought fuel. This locked up the water content of the fuel and kept the algae from growing. I had no problems after that. The important thing is that this problem is caused by sloppy work on the part of US oil companies and service stations. They don't keep the water out of the fuel, as is done in Europe. > 3) the smaller filter, when the car is misbahaving, barely has any > fuel in it. the drips into it are very slow. then, it will fill up > nicely and the car will run fine. It's been a while since you asked, and may not be relevant anyway because of the other things you mentioned, but shortly after I got my car, little cracks in the fuel line leading to the prefilter started leaking air into the fuel system. I could change the rate of airflow into that filter by bending the hose different ways, but obviously the solution was to replace the line. I was a bit surprised that fuel never leaked out through the same cracks, but air sure did go in... -tom! -- Thanks all for the tips. I have been adding some Lucas fuel additive to my tank for a week. I do not drive that often so it has not shown any signs of helping. I have now noticed that the problem occurs most often after coming off of the highway(high speeds for 10 minutes or so), regardless of the amount of fuel in the tank. In pure city driving, I rarely have the problem. I will try an additive that works on the algae as that seems like a very likely issue. I will report my results. Thanks again, Aaron |
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