Ok, if any of you can figure this out you should win a prize. There are many other people in this forum who, in the past few days, have complained of similar problems with their older 240s. But no one has seemed to pinpoint a solution. I have a '82 240 w/265,000 miles. Since 1995 this car has had the same problem, that no mechanic has been able to fix.

Here are the symptoms:
Every now and then the car will suddenly lose power while gently accelerating, for a period of 1 to 4 seconds. It will suddenly regain power (causing the whole car to shudder and jerk) and then sometimes it will lose power again for another 1 to 4 seconds (with another shudder and jerk). If I am going below 25 mph the car sometimes (but not always) stalls. As you can imagine this makes driving in traffic a bit interesting since it often likes to do this in rush hour traffic.

The problem won't exist for a month, but then it will appear, and crescendo, with episodes getting progressively worse and more frequent until I have to take it into the shop.

So far every mechanic I have taken it to has been unable to replicate the problem (it only seems to do it to me) or if it has acted up while the mechanic has it, they conclude that the fuel pump relay needs to be replaced. They find no problems with the fuel pumps. In the past three years I've had at least three fuel pump relays put in, as well as an new distributor cap etc, and new ignition pin updates. Each time they put in the new relay, the car works fine for about a month and then the problem starts up again.

I thought it was humidity causing corrosion and a short in the relay, but now I live in arid Denver. Not much humidity here--and its garaged.

Can anyone help this novice?

Thanks,

gregclouser@hotmail.com