hi all
I have a 1983 240d. I purchased her with 250k miles about 4 months ago, and she runs just fine (slow but fine
). But I have had one problem which has gotten progressively worse during the time of my ownership.
I don't drive my car very often, but when I do, I always have a problem on the FIRST start up of the day. It takes a very very long time (average say 20 seconds) with the starter engaged for her to fire up. The starter motor works fine, it puts out lots of gas fumes before firing up. cough cough (luckily less polluting gas fumes
)
The funny thing is that any additional start ups that same day are no problem. She ALWAYS starts immediately once she has been started once. This doesn't seem to be due to the engine being warm, though, since she can sit sit for, say, 8 hours and still start up immediately the second time of the day.
I suspect that the colder it is the worse the initial start up problem is, but i can't confirm that for sure.
I changed the oil fuel and air filters and it did not solve the problem.
The only unusual thing that I have done with the car since I bought her is that she is running on 100% biodiesel. This is not the immediate cause of the problem described above. It happened after I did a test fill with petroleum diesel as well.
There is another slight problem that may or may not be related. I have to jiggle around the key a lot to get the glow plug light to come on. This is also a problem that was not there when I bought the car, and has gotten a bit worse over time.
Thanks for any advice!