Even my nearly worn out (likely with pressure valve holder seal issues) 300D will start when it's quite cold (8F) IF you follow the instructions:
Run the glow plugs twice, put the pedal to the floor, and hold it there while cranking until the engine is running on it's own. You will generate an amazing amount of white and gray smoke, but if you don't keep cranking, it will never start as the battery will NOT have enough capacity to spin the engine fast enough without a recharge. You are not using much battery power, you are getting poor burn and very incomplete ignition on most cylinders, but each poor combustion cycle heats up the cylinder, and IF you keep cranking the burn gets better every time. Eventually you get enough power out of a couple cylinders to get the rest firing better and better, and off it goes. Ditto for the Golf, although I get repeated tries on it. Managed to get the 300D going on a very cold morning after the TE refused to start a couple years ago when I was in the middle of a congestive heart failure event and couldn't shovel out the TE, had to drive through the yard to go to work. Very smoky, but it worked! Peter _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
