How about a recap from start to finish on this lengthy journey. Starting with power washing the engine to what it took to get it running again? And what you found to improve the way the car drove until the recent MAF and O2 sensor.
Its a long and painful story but hopefully you can follow:
I bought the car on facebook last summer for $800, I towed it a family members house with my AAA membership.
When I got there I checked for bio wiring. All wiring was good except for the ETA. The ETA wiring was absolutely dust and totally shorting out.
I ordered and installed a rebuilt ETA and that same day I needed some gas. This family member had a bunch of gas jerry cans in the garage. One of them happened to be full of old radiator fluid. They needed a container to hold it until proper disposal.
I unknowingly dumped about 5 gallons of dirty, muddy, radiator fluid into the gas tank.
This locked up one of the fuel pumps and carried sediment all the way to the injector screens. They were very sorry and helped me remove and clean the gas tank. I also replaced a fuel pump, flushed the lines, replaced the injectors with used, fuel filter, fuel press accumulator.
I also lightly pressure washed the engine bay during this time. In hindsight I really do not think this is what caused damage as I tried to stay away from electronic components.
After all the fuel system work, and engine cleaning, the car seemed to run fine about 50% of the time. One day I could drive it for 30 minutes and it would be fine, another day it would just refuse to run. It would crank right up for 2 seconds and then die every time like clockwork. Inconsistant behavior.
Zero codes whatsoever.
I tried replacing the crank position sensor, cam position sensor, and OVP. Same behavior no change.
Then my attention went to the ECU.
The original ECU was providing irregular pulses to the fuel injectors (confirmed by a test light). I then bought a second ECU on ebay. It was also defective and didn't have any spark on cylinder #3.
I then borrowed a third (confirmed good) ECU from a friend. He also gave me a second (supposedly good) MAF for free.
So I installed the known good ECU and the supposedly good MAF from my friend. Car still would not stay running. Only way to get it to run reliably was with starter fluid sprayed down the intake/ETA.
At this point I was unbelievably frustrated and looking to scrap the car. I parked it in my backyard for about 5 months to work on other projects (my 400e).
A couple weeks ago I decided to pick back up on the project. After sitting outside all winter it suprisingly fired right up. It was now starting consistently (no stalling) but running poorly. Surging, rich exhaust, rough idle.
I thought what the hell, I may as well finish the parts cannon and replace the MAF and O2 sensor with brand new per
@maw1124 suggestion.
Seems to have fixed it.
Some lessons learned:
- These HFM ECU's appear to have higher failure rates than other MB's. I don't know why, perhaps eco wiring shorts them out. I've never had one fail on a KE JET car and all the used/junkyard ones from my 400e (LH) work just fine. Two in a row bad??
- Also, both Bosch OE MAF's I tried were bad. I never expected this high of a failure rate? They looked physically pristine and are Bosch OE
- I relied too heavily on fault codes. Everyone, on every forum I posted on (benzworld, peachparts etc), just said to check the fault codes. "Fault codes tell you everything". I checked fault codes probably 50 times over the last 6 months and never once got anything useful. The lack of fault codes actually led me astray. I figured if I don't have any fault codes, It must be a fuel issue? Fuel system is the only thing that wouldn't trigger a code I thought. This was incorrect logic.
So to recap, i think I had multiple failures on this car. Fuel related (self inflicted), faulty ECU, faulty MAF, and probably a bad O2 sensor (it looked original).
I suppose that's what I get for trying to fix up an $800 car. If I ever own another 300E it will be the M103 variety.
