Hello,

I just found this forum and think it's great.

As you may have gleaned from the subject, my '87 300E (140K) is having problems stalling. I have been having just about all the stalling problems possible for the last couple years. My new fiance is ready to kill me for the amount of money I spent on this car as her '98 Camry, while boring and painful for longish trips, is very reliable.

Currently the stalling problem manifests itself under the following conditions.

Start cold - all is fine. Drive until warm (30 minutes or more). Turn off car for 30 min. to 1 hour. Engine temp on warm start is just below 80. Car will stall when stopping quickly or slowing for a turn. Braking slowly will sometimes avoid the problem. The danger of stalling will continue for 30-45 min. Sometimes longer. When braking quickly the tach just drops all the way to 500 then dies, no sign of catching around 1000 or 800. Car will start up immediately. When acting up, the idle will seem to fluctuate between 700-900.

Over the past couple years just about everything has been replaced, idle speed valve, over voltage relay, fuel pump relay, various micro switches, distrubutor, injectors, hall sensor. The last thing replaced was the ECU itself upon dealer diagnosis. I bought a used one last september and the problem appeared to go away until about 2 months ago.

Disconnecting the ECU alleviates all problems but makes for hard cold starts. But I am not convinced this is the problem (I don't know if it ever really was) as disconnecting the ECU also bypasses all the other electrical stuff and makes the car run on mechanical fuel injection. My recent online investigations, including these forums make me suspect the fuel pump relay (again) or the fuel pump check valves. I can hear the fuel pump on cold start, and I believe the fuel pump relay controls this, but is it possible that forward braking momentum is causing it to shift and let the car stall? Remember it does hesistate briefly at about 500 rpm before it stalls. Same question for the check valves, would forward braking momentum cause these to close when they shouldn't be?

Any other ideas would be appreciated as I do like driving this car. I also plan to check the allen bolt on the TDC sensor, whcih I believe is near the oil filter?

Thanks alot,
Garth Gillespie