Re: my 89 740    B230 non-turbo Gl sedan that is down:  Very hard to
start, you have to give it LOTS of gas, it won't idle at all. It dies
when you put it in gear:

It has  a code set for "air mass meter failed".   But I have a bad
air duct that really needs replacement. It doesn't have a rigid
plastic duct like the turbo has, it is flexible/corrugated.  it has
gotten soft and was collapsing, and because of the rediculously high
price of a new air duct, I wrapped it up with metal tape. The ends of
this duct are different sizes...so I couldn't just buy a generic  flex
*metal* one off-the-shelf from a local parts dealer. I need to go back
out to the car and unwrap the duct and see if maybe it has split or
something, which would let unmetered air into the intake. If this was
happening, could this trick the computer into thinking that the air
mass meter is bad? Seems like this would cause it to set the mixture
completely wrong, at the least, right?

   Yea, this engine doesn't have a "limp-home" mode in reality,
because when the car was working OK, I once pulled the conn. off the
AMM, and the engine didn't just run badly--- it wouldn't idle at all,
and was undrivable!

Does anyone have a spare used AMM, P/N 281101A?  Even if it proves to
be just a matter of fixing the duct, I still need to get one to have
around for when the AMM really does fail, if it turns out to be in
fact good now. The local junkyard doesn't have any89-92 740's.

Thanks, Jim