Ok, now for a long tragic story of woe and travesty.
Well, maybe not quite that but I have had an interesting couple of days with my ’91 240.
I had been driving some time with the running a little rich/lean code that over time became a running really rich/lean code (Check Engine light on). I attributed it to the usual intake side leaks in combination with a bad cat. I was actually surprised last year when it passed emissions testing after failing the two years prior (replaced cat both times)
Yesterday I was getting on the freeway on a rather short entrance ramp, threw it down into second gear (auto trans) and it died. I coasted off and into a parking lot and tried to restart. After it wouldn’t start I looked at the fuses. The 16 amp fuse for the fuel pumps had gone. Now, I have no idea how old these fuses are but it was definitely burned. After I replaced it I started the car and it kind of went funny.
The best way I can describe it is that it turned over, caught for a second, and then, as if someone had kicked it in the balls, died again. When I started it again the most interesting thing is that the check engine light I had been staring at the last few months was off.
I wish I could say that the car had fixed itself or that a defective fuse had made for a lean running condition but it’s still funny. Most notably it is idling funny. It runs fast, around a grand RPM then when I come to a complete stop it drops to the normal 600-700 rpm range. The second I let off the brake it surges back up. When I am coasting in gear it feels like a manual transmission not quite grabbing in gear or when I coast down a hill the idling pulses.
Last night I pulled the codes and had a 2-3-2 (rich/lean) and a 1-2-1. I reset the codes, swapped out Air Mass Meter and took it for a test run. It still ran and idled funny but I only had the 2-3-2 code.
This morning when I drove to work it ran fine or as fine as it did before yesterday. I still had only the 2-3-2 code. When I went to meet the wife for lunch (we had Vietnamese) it was running with the peculiar surge and idle issues from yesterday.
I have been smelling gas lately, as an added bit of info, also when I swapped out AMMs I noticed some oil accumulation in the plastic intake hose between the AMM and throttle body.
Who wants to take a stab at diagnosing this? I’m pretty sure that I’m going to find a combination of issues and not just a single issue causing all of this.