My ’64 230SL let me down last night for the first time in 4 years and 50,000 miles. Not only that but it happened when I needed it most !
I ended up using this car for a trip into the city on a miserable wet evening as my father had the other car whilst my wife had our main car. I had to take a trip into the “dark side” of town to collect my 5 year old daughter who was appearing on stage in a musical. I was having trouble with a flat battery on the days previously and having checked the charging rate and found it to be low I charged the battery, tested it and replaced the fan belt which corrected the low charging rate. So far so good. I therefore decided it would be okay to drive and brought my booster pack AND a set of jump leads.
The car started and ran fine but after about 10 miles the idle dropped a bit and the car started to cut out every time I clutched to a stop. It didn’t cut out instantly but just idled for about 30 seconds and dies. It did this repeatedly whilst in heavy traffic. The ambient temperature was cold, about 8-10 deg C, and the operating temp was perfect at 180 F (don’t you love the two scales ). Anyway my battery / charging issue was obviously cured as I had plenty of cranking power each time, even using lights, wipers and radio. It took 3 attempts each time to restart but did so relatively quickly.
I parked up and collected my daughter and returned to the car, having left it sit for about 15 minutes. It would not start. It turned over quickly, repeatedly but wouldn’t fire. I gave it a cursory glance in case I had disturbed something earlier but found nothing. I checked for spark at the points and got it. I wondered if it was flooded , although I don’t recall smelling fuel, and removed both the fuel pump and CSV fuses and spun it over with a wide open throttle for a short time. Still nothing, not even a splutter.
At this time I felt the battery voltage was dropping so I hooked up the booster. Again it spun over with no trace of starting. I wondered about the coil being okay, then fuel starvation, though having reinserted the fuses I could hear the pump running. I wondered about vaporisation, though having never experienced it over the last 4 years even in summer traffic it seemed doubtful. So I figured the famous “push” switch in the cabin for the CSV could’ve helped. I ran a wire from the switch to the battery and had my 5 year old crank the engine, it did splutter and make an attempt to start. I repeated this a few times but seemed unable to “finesse” the CSV accurately.
The booster grew weak and when a group of guys approached a nearby parked car I asked and they agreed to give me a push, at which point it started INSTANTLY with minimal effort and I drove all the way home. The car didn’t stall, or rather I didn’t allow it to, but it did misfire anytime I floored it. It was an irregular misfire, i.e not any specific cylinder, and it cleared upon reducing the throttle. It would still do 75MPH but flooring it caused little acceleration but a lot of stumbling. It started and drove perfectly this morning !
Any ideas ?
I have a few theories and want to start looking asap ! What do the experts say ?
Regards,
Ben in Ireland.
'64 230SL 4sp.
