Kate,

How old is the battery?  Even though it tested "good" five months ago it may
not be holding a charge over night anymore.

Josh

Kate,

The glow plug system has an 80 amp fuse, a/k/a fusible link, that's
under a plastic cover on the glow plug relay - located on the left
fender. The cover slides UP. Pull the cover UP and check the link - it's
probably broken or melted. If so, that's THE PROBLEM!

These links are sold by the dealer and on-line for about $2 each, one is
needed, also buy a spare.

This should solve it, if not, come back.

Tom

I had a similar event happen about eighteen months ago.  I have
a 1983 240D.  A new battery took care of everything eventhough
the testing of the old battery showed it not to be "down".

Helen

Had the same problem on my '81 300D. Although I burn biodiesel it had always
started up great. When the problem began I changed the glow plugs since the
fuse link was fine and I was getting current to the then installed glow
plugs. I made the mistake of putting in Autolite glow plugs instead of
Bosch. It started fine in the early morning if I gave it a slight shot of
starter fluid in the air filter intake tube at the front near the radiator
core support, not enough to cause any diesel knocking. Later in the day it
started okay but without near the gusto it had in the past. I finally solved
the problem by installing one of those new glow plug relays which keep the
current flowing for about three minutes. The kit I bought also included new
Bosch glow plugs. It now starts up on cold mornings in less than 5 seconds
of cranking. I'll never use anything but Bosch plugs now. Incidentally, my
240D (also on biodiesel) starts without a bit of hesitation, regardless of
the weather.

By the way, I've been using well-filtered WVO blended with small amounts of
kerosene, gasoline, and a couple of other additives which I purchase
locally. Works perfect despite rumblings from all the naysayers. I've heard
some who complained about the "gunk" left in the bottom of containers when
using the "recommended" method of purifying WVO and claim they would never
put that through their engine. However, they fail to realize that Dr. Diesel
designed his engine to run on vegetable oil and you get exactly the same
"gunk" when processing virgin peanut, canola and other types of oil. Just
thought I'd throw that into the mix. Incidentally, at about 80 cents a
gallon I laugh at the price of diesel as I drive past service stations these
days.

Kate;
You have no glow plugs left. Put in new ones and all will be well.

I had this problenm this winter when it was very very cold. I would
start the car and let it run till the water came up to temperatire
every 6 hours because it was SUCH an ordeal to start when very cold
and no glow plugs. I had to use two batteries and a 50 AMP battery
charger/boost.

You can change the glow plugs yourself VERY easily. Get a 19mm
wrench and take off the injector rails. Those are the snakey
steel lines going from the injector pump to the injectors. Looks
scary and OMG you're taking your engine apart but it's really
really easy. Undo the bolts at the injector pump. Undo the
bols at the injectors, it now comes off as an assembly all at once,
place it upside down on the air cleaner, cover with  a cloth.

Now you can yank the glow plugs. It's a 13mm socket IIRC and
is as easy as changing spark plugs. Take them out, put in new
news, tighten them up to about as tigh as they were by feel.

Some poeple try to do this without removing the injector rails
and it's a right bitch. You'll save an hour and much swearing
by removing the rails.

I can't reiterate enough how easy it is to remove those injector
rails or how scary it looks if you haeven't done it before. Once
you have you can do it in between 5 and 10 minutes.