carlson03

Hello all,
My issue that I am having is sometimes when I come to a stop in my 88 260E, the car stalls, but will start right back up. I can see the RPMs fall below 500 when it happens then the car dies.
Also, not sure if its related, when I open my doors and the car is running, the lights get dim, and go back to normal, until I start driving. When the car is off, the lights seem to be fine.
I wasn't sure if there was something to check; I checked my dist. cap, rotor and spark plugs since they are simple to check/change.
Any response would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Craig

crr1612

your lights get dimmer? sounds like an electrical problem then. is the alternator original? how olds the battery?

carlson03

alternator is about 1.5 years to 2 years old, and the battery was replaced in December

Rio Z Lander

same here my car lights dim and the car stalls at lights. some times my car runs rough some times at low rpms the drivers side door flys open some times to. the drivers side door light never comes on when i open my door but it comes on if you open any of the other doors on the car also i can not get to my fog lights to change them out. ill be posting a thing later with every thing that is wrong with my car and photos and see if i can get some help

carlson03

Did you get any news on this issue?

I was thinking about taking my car up to Auto Zone to have them check out my alternator and battery...if its fine, I will have to keep searching.

carlson03

I put a volt meter on my battery with the car running....with it idling and nothing on, its at about 11.8 volts, with heater on, lights on, radio on, it went down to about 11.6 volts. When I would rev the engine, the reading goes up, usually at about 13.5 volts, but not over 14 volts. Is the electrical system charging normally?
Thanks!

drechsler

Your readings seem quite normal for a good charging system.

drechsler

BTW, I've only had mine for less than a month, & it has stalling issues as well. I used one of those ink-pen looking spark checkers & noticed that I had no spark on one cylinder...Changed out the wires & still no spark...Pulled the distributor cap & ...MAN, the contacts looked like crap...I cleaned them with no luck...a new cap & rotor button will be here tomorrow and I'm very optimistic.

carlson03

last summer when I had the car, i had a major stalling issue similar to yours, not the no spark, but it fixed all of the stalling issues, but its back, and fixed the items again with no luck. Hopefully yours works. Keep us posted about the fix!

shdoug

It's not charging at idle speed, then. Anyone know if this is normal? I thought all cars with alternators charged at idle speed. You should see that 13.5 volts all the time while it's running if no accessories are on. But I don't think that's your problem anyway.

carlson03

I will run the same test on one of my other cars to see what voltage they are putting out at idle

maromeo

I had the same problem with my 300E a few months back. I changed the fuel pump relay and have not had any issues since.

Shadymanny

Had a similar problem, although the mechanic sort of said the fuel relay may be an issue, simply removing the OVP and reinserting it stopped the stalling.
OVP=overload voltage protection relay

Saijin_Naib

Im having the same problem right now. It happened right after we bought the car, and after my dad replaced the distrib. cap, ignition wires, spark plugs, it went away. Now its back with a vengeance. I have heard OVP, fuel pump relay, O2 sensor and MAFS as possible causes. Would any of those also cause the fuel gague to jump and change levels drastically? For example, today, during the stalling fit, my fuel was reading off half tank, empty, half tank, 1/4 tank, half tank and repeat. Once I got the car past its fits (got it on the highway and sprinted up to 80, slow to 60, up to 80, slow to 40, cruise 60) it was fine. Wtf?