rayhennig
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2006
- Messages
- 769
- Reaction score
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- Your Mercedes
- 1991 300CE-24 Sportline
I hope this may help someone.
This is NOT related to a hot engine idle fluctuation that does still cause a stall from time to time, and did today during my test. More on this elsewhere - I suspect weak idle mixture.
This relates to a recent stalling-when-hot problem. Engine would misfire after, say, 15 minutes of warming up and then would die if revs fell, say, at a junction. It would then need around an hour to restart and then needed to be kept 'on the boil' to avoid stalling during rapid return home!
0. Car has 350 K Kms and 2 years ago had new distributor cap and rotor arm. I was in UK at the time, near Ashford, Kent where I bought low-cost Bremi parts from a discount motor store.
All was fine until recently (April 2009) when car died on me after not having been used for a few weeks.
1. I dismantled and cleaned the distributor cap and surroundings.
2. Re-assembled, tested and things seemed OK. Test only lasted an hour or so but involved heating things up and then stopping for 10 minutes before resuming. A week later, the same problem returned.
3. Ordered distributor internal shield and O-ring from Mercedes. Installed and it started immediately but after 10 minutes idling it started misfiring and then died.
4. Disconnected battery for 30 minutes (?) and re-tried – the same, it died again.
5. Replaced 'newish' Bremi rotor arm (easiest course) with cleaned up, ancient (original) Bosch part – this one had Mercedes star on it so may have been original 1991 part. Engine started immediately and settled into steady idle. Left it idling for 30 mins, never missed a beat.
6. Tested for nearly 2 hours including 30 minute stop and a few 5 minute stops. Restarting was better than ever and idling good. Low down torque also seems better.
All seems well now and confidence has returned.
I was tempted to strip out Bremi cap and replace with old Bosch original but ex-Army motor maintenance officer friend said, “Try it for a while.” I will try this but I'm tempted to go back to Bosch original that I've now cleaned up. It is ancient but it looks good after clean up although internal contacts are eroded.
When my economy improves I will almost certainly bight the bullet and get cap and rotor from Mercedes.
My friend did note that the old internal shield appeared to have been varnished and showed me how this stuff easily scraped off the surface. He said this was an army technique that he's used on distributor caps when no replacement part is available. Apparently it's good for quite a while but not a permanent fix. He aslo said he noticed evidence of 'tracking' on the shield and thought my new purchase was probably worthwhile.
This is not a dig at Bremi parts but I would like to hear of any other experiences with these after-market bits. Any comments?
As always, the best to all.
RayH
This is NOT related to a hot engine idle fluctuation that does still cause a stall from time to time, and did today during my test. More on this elsewhere - I suspect weak idle mixture.
This relates to a recent stalling-when-hot problem. Engine would misfire after, say, 15 minutes of warming up and then would die if revs fell, say, at a junction. It would then need around an hour to restart and then needed to be kept 'on the boil' to avoid stalling during rapid return home!
0. Car has 350 K Kms and 2 years ago had new distributor cap and rotor arm. I was in UK at the time, near Ashford, Kent where I bought low-cost Bremi parts from a discount motor store.
All was fine until recently (April 2009) when car died on me after not having been used for a few weeks.
1. I dismantled and cleaned the distributor cap and surroundings.
2. Re-assembled, tested and things seemed OK. Test only lasted an hour or so but involved heating things up and then stopping for 10 minutes before resuming. A week later, the same problem returned.
3. Ordered distributor internal shield and O-ring from Mercedes. Installed and it started immediately but after 10 minutes idling it started misfiring and then died.
4. Disconnected battery for 30 minutes (?) and re-tried – the same, it died again.
5. Replaced 'newish' Bremi rotor arm (easiest course) with cleaned up, ancient (original) Bosch part – this one had Mercedes star on it so may have been original 1991 part. Engine started immediately and settled into steady idle. Left it idling for 30 mins, never missed a beat.
6. Tested for nearly 2 hours including 30 minute stop and a few 5 minute stops. Restarting was better than ever and idling good. Low down torque also seems better.
All seems well now and confidence has returned.
I was tempted to strip out Bremi cap and replace with old Bosch original but ex-Army motor maintenance officer friend said, “Try it for a while.” I will try this but I'm tempted to go back to Bosch original that I've now cleaned up. It is ancient but it looks good after clean up although internal contacts are eroded.
When my economy improves I will almost certainly bight the bullet and get cap and rotor from Mercedes.
My friend did note that the old internal shield appeared to have been varnished and showed me how this stuff easily scraped off the surface. He said this was an army technique that he's used on distributor caps when no replacement part is available. Apparently it's good for quite a while but not a permanent fix. He aslo said he noticed evidence of 'tracking' on the shield and thought my new purchase was probably worthwhile.
This is not a dig at Bremi parts but I would like to hear of any other experiences with these after-market bits. Any comments?
As always, the best to all.
RayH
