A friend of mine has for a year been experiencing sputtering, loss of power and sometimes sudden death when driving at low rpms. The problems occur occasionally, on and off, most typically in warm weather, heavy traffic/ red ligts. It will then only start when having cooled off for 20 - 30 minutes. The problem never occurs in high speeds, and he also feels that keeping the fuel tank half empty or less reduces the occurance of probs.
It's a 1969 european automatic, and it was renovated at MB in Germany in 1996, and it has worked very good untill recently. The car is however garaged for months at time every year, since it sits in southern France when he's back in Norway.
He has recently had the fuel injection pump bench-adjusted by specialized workshops in Cannes, without seeing any improvements. I'm not sure excactly how specialized these workshops are when it comes to this early generation mechanical Bosch. Anyway, in my experience this pump wouldn't fall out of adjustment just sitting in the garage.
I haven't tested the car myself, but I suspect this could be linked to some kind of temperature/thermostat-problem, feeding too rich when engine is warm. Perhaps something like the Cold Start Valve or Thermo Time Switch, or insufficient sirculation/cooling due to clogged up channels or pipes. As far as I know this pump has the oil recirculation system, which is another possible source to probs.
It has also been suggested that the fuel return pipe may have clogged up.
Has anyone experienced something simular to this and found a cure? Someone who knows good professionals he turn to in the vicinity of southern France, Italy, Switzerland or nearby when it comes to these Bosch pumps?
Thanks, Anders
