1983 Mercedes Benz 300dt cranks but wont start

Tiny
DORJE33
  • MEMBER
  • 1983 MERCEDES BENZ 300DT
  • 4 CYL
  • 2WD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 200,000 MILES
My car has been having a few issues that maybe are related to it not starting. It has a very rough idle. The vacuum system has issue, the doors don't lock consistently and the car only turns off with the key half the time. There is also a problem with the wire that goes from the positive connection on the batterry to the starter, sometimes I have to pull on it to make it connect and when I get under the car to look at it the threaded cover on the cord in frayed. So, on the fateful morning when my car finally wouldn't start I tried starting it as usual and the car just cranked and cranked and nothing caught. Then I looked out and saw smoke and what smelled like burned electircal wires soming from the area where ther wire connects to the starter. I stopped and came back to it later and it doesn't smoke anymore. When I crank it now it gets slower and slower. Right before it happenned I put in a new guel filter and a new inline pre-filter.
Monday, November 9th, 2009 AT 5:14 PM

3 Replies

Tiny
RASMATAZ
  • MECHANIC
  • 75,992 POSTS
Your battery could be weak all that cranking and also fix that frayed wire could be shorting out-
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Monday, November 9th, 2009 AT 5:28 PM
Tiny
DORJE33
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
Is there somwhere I can look to help give me instructions on changing out the wire. I also noticed that there are 2 sets of wires one goes from battery to starter and one goes from a junction box, should I replace both to be on the safe side?
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 AT 9:47 AM
Tiny
MHPAUTOS
  • MECHANIC
  • 31,937 POSTS
Hi there,

I will just add a foot note to the great advice form my co moderator, these starters do have a problem with polling, that is when they are subjected to prolonged slow cranking due to other electrical problems, the armatures do over heat and you can start to melt the solder on the armature windings causing internal shorting and still more cranking issues, so if the cranking speed is still poor after checking all other options, consider the starter as a problem as well.

Mark (mhpautos)
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Saturday, November 21st, 2009 AT 7:04 PM

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