The effects of ether (starting fluid) on my diesel..???
 

What kinds of effects , long or short term , does ether starting fluid have on my engine in my 79 300cd non turbo ? I've got an automatic ether shot system and have been contemplating install . I've had problems in the past with hard starts and a shot of ether always started her right up , even eliminating glow plug wait times . This system would even elinate getting out and opening the hood , to give it a shot .:confused: :fork_off:

Blowing the headgasket, blowing a prechamber out of the head, bending a rod, cracking a piston, backfiring into the intake, and fire.

Ether is like crack. Once it's used, it's addicted for life.

Just upgrade the loop style glowplugs to the pencil type. Using ether in an engine with glowplugs is like playing Russian roulette. It may work a few times, but it only takes one bad event to turn an engine into scrap metal.

Put on your flame suit!! Do a quick search here about ether starting and you will steer clear of that idea.

You would be better off correcting any problems rather than relying on the damaging effects of ether.

There's two distinct camps on this one.

The first camp will strongly discourage you from using ether. The claim is as mentioned above.........the potential for all kinds of damage. While the claim is true, the evidence of such damage to members of the forum is limited, at best.

The second camp will state that when ether is used judiciously and sprayed for two seconds while the engine is cranking, just to provide the means to light it off, no damage can possibly occur.

There..........now I've saved you from reading further..........all the remaining posts will fall into one of the two previous categories.

In reality, both categories are probably correct.

ok
 

Ok so this is what I'll do then...I'll use it regularly until my engine blows through my hood one day...Then I'll kick myself for life saying I knew better and why did I do it ?
Still lost on this one..

Camp #1 will be chuckling.........what a dumb _____ ........we told him so........

Camp #2 will probably suggest that you dumped 1/3 can in there...........

In other words, ether is a band-aid with the potential to make things worse.

Fix the glowplugs, use the block heater, adjust your valves, replace your fuel filters, check for fuel leaks, and throw away the ether.

I killed a lawn mower with ether. It lost compression after a couple of seasons, the cylinder walls were scored bad. Ether removes the lubricating qualities of oil so the rings wear hard on the cylinder walls.
Now, try something else, WD40. Don't laugh, an old timer I know taught me that as they use it in his garage when a diesel is hard to start after all its a light lubricating fluid with some aromatics in it so less damaging but still for the long haul fix that engine whatever is ailing it and stoip using any starting fluid, unless you want to kill it slowly.

This forum is good at helping folks "fix" their car. They are inherently fixable, especially with this issue.
You can update your glow plugs easier than installing some type of ether injection system better suited for a tractor without glow plugs.....

Fix the car properly
 

Easy for me to say it since I'm not paying for, or having to fix it, but my typical mode of operation, is to fix the car properly and be done with it. If you're having to use starter fluid .... somethin' ain't right. So fix it.

Short story for you as to why I think that way....

Years ago I had a 1979 Plymouth Volare 2 door coupe. Cool car for its day. Bought it used; it had a dent in the driver's side door. Too cheap to have it fixed, I drove that car for 2 years ... with a dent in the door. One day, I wanted to sell it, so I thought I should make it look good, so I had it fixed. And sold it. It dawned on me, 2 years too late, that had I fixed it right up front when I first bought it, it would have cost me the same amount of money, except I would have enjoyed a better looking car. I fixed it for the next person. Never again. I fix the stuff to make it right, and when I sell it, it's worth more anyways since everything works. It's sort of an investment, not an expense.

Jeff 1991 300d, 100k

Ok , I was planning on getting everything done very soon anyways , I didn't realize it could have such drastic effect on the thing though . I won't be using ether anymore . I will use the wd40 , but only the next time I move the car to bring it to the Mercedes shop . I can do all my own work but I'm on the road all the time , and really don't have time these days .

Since my vehicle was made for the military, specificially the Indian military which operates on the coldest terrain on earth that is Siachen glaciers at -50C, an emergency Ether start system is standard, its enclosed in a breakable capsule, however it comes with a written warning, only use it during severe emergency, probably when your vehicle has been sitting overnight and the enemy starts shelling and you have to hustle, so I am sure ether is not a good idea at all.

Heed The Warning !!
 

Well , if they're making such a big deal about it , I'd really better heed to the warning . Like I said I had no idea it would be so bad for it ..Just hope that I haven't already caused damage .

I use ether regularly on my ford E350, but only AFTER the glow plug relay has kicked off. If you spray the either into the motor and hit the starter, the glow plugs could blow the head apart. Then again, the glow plugs on that thing dont work anyway, and changing them with those van cabs is a PITA, but I still never use it on the benz.

I must agree, as not to use the ether. I run a Detroit Diesel (No GP's) in a bus, and every one says not to use ether. It has to be plugged in, or preheated.
I do agree with Truckinik, as I have used WD-40, as exception, to get a MB running which had a leak in the IP gsakets. Getting that corrected. But I keep a can of WD-40 in each Benz. A friend who operated construction equipment showed me the trick. That CAT equip. cost alot more than my MB.

Another friendof mine puts about a gallon of gasoline in his mbz for every fill up in the winter months only.One gallon of gas and 17 of diesel for every fill up.It gets mixed in pretty well and the car has never had a single problem in his 23 years of hard driving the thing.It is now in the neighborhodd of 290,000 miles and stil running strong.With this , he doesn't even need to plug it in even on the coldest nights.Can't run it any other time of year except for cold winter , because car will just plain run too hot .

Is it true these thigs will run well off of kerosine? I was also told it will,but never had the guts,to try it w/my baby.My cars have never run on anythig except diesel,as long as I've had them,so I'm just trying to learn more about these other fuels,options...

Plenty of info if you search for 'kerosene' or 'rug' (regular unleaded gasoline).

The owner's manual advises mixing kerosene with diesel to avoid gelling in colder climates.

You can run it on 100% Kero. It'll be fine........although it will lose about 25% of it's power and economy because of the lower BTU value of the fuel.

Ether is bad!
 

I have used a lot of ether on old diesels over the years. On my 2 cycle Detroits, a little shot of ether and they were up and running. But a couple of weeks ago when my glo plugs failed, and it went from a good start to a hard start to a no start in about 10 days, I did experiment with ether. First, I had the glo plugs disconnected and then I sprayed in a very short shot while cranking the 617. It wasn't a two second shot either - it was as short as I could make it, very short. Yet when that little puff of ether was stuffed into those cylinders, the racket and sound was unbelievable. It did start the engine, but I found it very difficult to keep it going for about 30 seconds. This was at about 25 degrees inside the garage. I also spent considerable time trying to start it with WD40. It cranked better and faster, but I had no sucess at all in getting it to fire up on WD40. None. So my conclusion is, if you like your 617 engine, don't use ether. Why I didn't have any sucess with WD40 is a surprise to me. I read many posts saying it works great.

I have ethered my SD a few times when I needed it to start. Once or twice I forgot to plug in and needed to get to class, and class is more valuable than a $500 car so I don't give a crap I'll load a whole can into the intake if I have to!:D

Anyway never had an issue, I usualy remove the GP strip fuse as well.

I wouldn't use it all the time, but if you are stuck in a parking lot and the car won't start do what you have to do.

I spoke with a man up in Maine today and we got on the subject of cars, I mentioned I had a few Mercedes so he said he keeps seeing an old lady in a 100D around there. I thought the first diesel Mercedes sent to NA was the 180D? anyhow he said she runs it on Kerosene all the time as they sell it at a gas station there, must be a quaint country place, he has seen her fill up a couple of times and he was shocked when he saw he using Kero so he went over to check it out and she told him the car was a grey market car and Mercedes recommended Kerosene from the get-go. I suppose they didn't have many diesel pumps back then.

I told him if she wanted to sell it give me a call! heck I can find room for another Benz I suppose, especially a 1948 100D (if it exists!) :wacko:

For WD40 you have to almost squirt it right into the intake manifold, at least we took the air cleaner off when we used it at the shop and put it directly in, not thru an aircleaner.
No one mentioned this before on the thread but Ether is very bad for your liver or something, not at all healthy to a person's body! Take car with that stuff if you use it a lot try not to breath much of it. It was discontinued as a anasthesia long ago for that reason

I suspect that the effectiveness of WD-40 is related to the fact that it uses propane as a propellant. A shot of propane might be equally effective. Anyone tried it?

A 100D is a van.

Pictured is a 1992 100D
http://www.cars-directory.net/pics/m...0d_3439655.jpg
http://www.cars-directory.net/pics/m..._3439655_2.jpg

Yikes! At 25% less power output and $4/gal. for kerosene, those are expensive operating costs.

My 602 and 603 manuals specify up to 50% kerosene with #2 diesel, never more than 50% kerosene, and not to mix kerosene with #1 (winter) diesel.

I would most definitely remove the glow plug strip fuse if I were going to use ether.

Good luck,

Looks like an early Sprinter to me. What engine did it have? 60x?

I know some came with the 2.9L direct injection version of the OM602.

i have advocated the use of wd40 as a primer on starting engines that have lost their prime. a diesel will run just fine on it if sprayed into the intake directly. i do not advocate it as an aid for difficult cold starting. as far as i know it will start a diesel no better than the regular diesel.

again only as a primer for those who have changed the filters or somehow otherwise lost prime.

the old 6.2 gm diesels didn't have any priming pump so to get one started after a filter change required ingenuity.

wd 40 is no substitute for properly operating glow plugs.

tom w

The color....:puke: :pukeface: :repuke: :hanged2:

Build a spud gun, fire it off ether a few times (or, in my case, several hundred times), and then put that force into your diesel and decide... the fastest spritz i can finger an ether can with is enough to propel a potato out of a pvc tube well over 50 yards.