So i was driving my 240DL home from work tonight, just got on to the on ramp when i just felt a tremendous loss of power...the car was still running(cd player and lights remained on) but when i gave it gas nothing happened, so i think the engine may have died, but i'm not sure.

I pulled it over to the shoulder and started it again, but the second it got into drive, it died. I could turn it on and leave it in park and it would remain on for about 10-30 seconds before shutting off. If i put it in drive or reverse, it would shut off in about a second and i could maybe get it to go half a foot in that period of time. I've been having problems with the connection between the batery and the motor (just replaced a terminal and soon going to replace most of those wires) but this doesn't seem like an electrical problem. Any ideas? Keep in my mind that my experience with car repairs is very small (changing spark plugs, oil, terminal) so keep it simple. Thanks in advance, Jason.

Sounds to me like the Air Mass Meter. Ive gone threw 2 in my 88 240 and its a very common problem. The symptoms are exactly as you describe. If you do a search on this site for AMM or air mass meter you'll turn up lots of information. good luck.