tpmintx

97 E300D; 165K miles. Shuts down unexpectedly at times.

City traffic, freeway, random. Will re-start after sitting for minute or 2.

Done: New fuel filters all the way thru. - Problem persisted
Cleaned Tank screen. - Problem persisted
Done: New vacuum lines below manifold. - Problem continues.

Just replaced 9 of 12 fuel line O-rings (Could not get to last 3.) Will see if this gets it.

Any other things to try?

Notes on the car - a prior owner had tried running Veg-oil (Not Bio-D) thru this engine and it had caused some problems. Dealer had acquired it from bank after repo, and reported having to do some work to clean the veg out of the fuel system.

We've put probably 8k miles on this car, problem in the last 2-3k miles.

This acts a lot like the crank position sensor problem that has been written about on the E320 and E430 engines. I don't think that the diesel has this.

Any ideas?

Musikmann

Typically 1-2 minutes is not long enough for the engine to cool down to the point you can diagnose a faulty KPS. I don't know if the diesels have these.

PackerBacker

Maybe the k40 relay - seems as though around 150k is typical life. Mine was replaced at 150k as well. Thinking is that a crack has developed in your pc board and the right circumstances cause overheat and failure of control signal. Shutdown and a few minutes to cool and off you go until overhead again. Long and short if it is for $100 or so to replace a component which WILL fail in the near future may be money well spent.. another 150k life component is your alternate - very easy to r&r and you can have rebuilt for around $75 or so. If yours craps out before you can get Lyon it (such as my own '96 E300d), you get to payout 2x.
Good luck & let us know the outcome...
Scott

michakaveli

K40 is the most common culprit. Replacing this is your best bet