Sorry folks, it's late and I'm tired. I neglected to spellcheck the previous version of this essay. This is the good one....
Capt Norm goes to Diesel School I set out from Jacksonville FL for Gulfport MS to visit Jan who was taking care of her injured son. Having loaned her my Ford Windstar minivan to carry her invalid patient around, I had the use of her 1981 Mercedes 240D (D for diesel), "Baby Car". Although I seemed to notice a decrease in acceleration (it is a little four-cylinder diesel pushing a heavy body) all went well for the first two hundred miles until I got a cell phone call and was unable to locate my phone. When I pulled off I-10 into the breakdown lane, my right wheels hit the grass creating a significant vibration throughout the car. Shortly after I got underway again there was a pronounced drop in engine power. This condition came and went from that time on until I pulled into a rest area and changed the fuel filters, a quick and easy job on the 240D. I blessed myself for carrying spare filters and tools. I did notice the small transparent primary filter seemed quite dirty so when I put the new ones in (and remembered to fill them fuel oil from the spare gallon in the trunk) I was confident the problem was dealt with. Silly me... About an hour later the problem reappeared but I was lucky enough to limp into another rest stop. Thinking the thirty-year-old rubber hose between the metal fuel supply pipe (5/16" od tubing) had a crack and was sucking air I inspected it carefully and cut an inch off each end of this 12" long hose, reconnected it, and off I went again pleased that I had at last banished the gremlins. Silly me... It soon became apparent I was not out of the woods yet (both literally and figuratively). The car gradually slowed down until I was doing 20 mph in the breakdown lane. This time I'm thinking that since the fuel gauge has been fluky at 1/4 tank in the past, perhaps this flukiness has advanced to 1/2 tank, which is what the gauge showed, so I resolved to fill up at my next opportunity, an exit one mile ahead. But I was soon brought to a complete stop about 50 yards before the exit where diesel fuel was promised just around the corner. No sweat I thought, I have AAA. An simple phone call and I was assured a "service technician" would show up in less than 45 minutes. I fiddled with the engine and managed to crawl onto the exit ramp but could go no farther. The engine really tried to start but I ran out of battery to crank it with. I had just had the recently replaced alternator checked that very morning and it was pronounced working properly but the battery showed "83% capacity". "83%" capacity", I thought at the time, that must be good for a few more months. With the words "Waste not, Want not" ringing in my mind I ignored the auto parts man (of course he wanted to sell me a new battery, right?) and rolled merrily on my way. Silly me... So I lifted the hood, rigged the jumper cables, (thank goodness I had invested in heavy duty jumpers) and stood at the side of the highway like some bizarre hitch-hiker waving the clamps of my jumper cables at each passing motorist. After twenty-five or so cars passed me by a young Air Force man (Eglin AFB was nearby) stopped and gave me a jump. I did get the engine going again, cancelled the AAA call, and limped into the gas station. After filling up off I went, yet again filled with optimism that I had "finally" gotten things under control. After all I smiled, didn't I often brag about building a "bullet proof" fuel system on Bandersnatch? Silly me... My confidence was short lived but I felt really lucky when I limped into yet another rest stop. I checked the connections, tighten the hose clamps and again the engine fired up. This time I didn't even make it back out onto I-10. Again I called AAA and in due time Bubba showed up and happily lifted "Baby Car" up onto his flatbed tow truck. I told him all I really needed was a new battery so he took me to an Auto Zone where I replaced the battery ($140 - it's a diesel). After a lot of cranking and sputtering I got the engine spinning again and off we went into the night. It didn't seem to have much power but I was again underway. With only 130 miles to go I was rolling, even if doing only 55mph up the hills and 60mph on the level. But Mobile was ahead with its long bridge over Mobile Bay, ending with a fearsome tunnel with NO breakdown lanes, followed by a twisty high-speed urban freeway. I was frightened by the thought of a dead engine along this stretch and tried desperately to imagine what more I could do but could only come up with a blockage at the fuel tank end of the fuel supply line, a problem I could not see myself fixing in the breakdown lane. But this time the Gods smiled and I sailed across the long bridge, through the fearsome tunnel and through the heart of the city as well. I was grateful for this incredible luck, and actually still felt that way when red lights appeared on the instrument panel signaling a stopped engine yet again. I was DOA in the breakdown lane, this time with three roaring lanes of 75mph heavy traffic two feet away on my left, a high curb on my right and another lane of traffic just beyond that. I waited a full minute, then started cranking again. After desperate full-on cranking with starter whirring and the engine struggling feebly to run it finally sputtered to a sort of half-life. With a break in the traffic I managed to slide back into the stream at 55mph with my right foot hard on the floor. My luck held for the next thirty miles and I eventually made it to my destination, with pedal to the metal and fear in my heart almost all the time. With Baby Car safely parked in the driveway I could exhale. I managed through stubbornness, a little forethought and more than a little luck to muck on through. I felt VERY lucky. After a day's rest, I bought some new fuel line and clamps, a new set of fuel filters, and a outboard motor bulb-style fuel pump. Installing the bulb pump on the fuel suction line showed unequivocally a blockage in the fuel supply when the bulb VERY slowly expanded to it's normal shape after each squeeze. Consulting the Haynes manual, and Goggling "Mercedes 240D fuel problem", it was obvious that the root problem was a plugged supply fuel strainer in the bottom of the fuel tank. A simple cure, at least in Australia, is to fill the tank with B100 (100% bio-diesel) which they claim will clean all the glop out of tank and strainer. One could also drain the tank, remove the strainer (with a 1 3/4", 3/4" drive socket), then clean and replace it. But it turns out the return line terminus is at the bottom of the tank near the suction strainer but has no strainer on it so the quick fix is to simply switch the suction and return hoses under the hood and let the primary filter, the little plastic one, easily changed, handle the trash that was blocking the tank strainer as the return flow flushes the glop back into the tank and into the unscreened return line. I chose the latter route and will purchase several new primary filters (at about $6 each) to carry with me while I ride merrily along basking in the glow of Jan's admiration; "My Hero", swoon, swoon.... Some Mistakes: Since my own fuel system on Bandersnatch has the return lines dump into the tank near the tank tops, I had wrongly imagined the car's tank was the same. I had the Haynes book in the trunk with a drawing of the tank showing the fuel line details but never looked at it. The 240D's lift pump actually can be manually operated. I could have loosened a supply banjo bolt at the top of the secondary filter and primed the system manually, possibly revealing the plugged suction strainer in the tank by the resistance on the pull stroke. I knew there was a white plastic knob on the lift pump that did look like a knob to operate the pump. I had tried moving it. It didn't pull. It was stiff to turn and I didn't push the issue, afraid to break the thirty-year-old plastic. Later I read of the "manual priming pump" on line and emboldened by that, I did unscrew it and discovered it worked just fine by pulling and pushing the knob. It seems that no matter how much experience we get, we still have challenging lessons to enjoy! I hope the above experience may be useful to someone... Regards, Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek FL N30 07.68 W081 38.47 _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
