Hey guys. I inherited last spring an '83 245GL B23 that reportedly "only" needed a head gasket. It needed more than that and I replaced all the normal gaskets. This car sat for at least a year without ever being started. I finally got it started with new plugs, wires, rotor, etc. It was very difficult to start, with a lot of blackstuff blowing out of exhaust when it finally did. What was that? It will not hold the idle. I put three gallons of fresh gas in the tank before starting, but I am wondering if the old gas in there was fouled, and the difficult starting due to that? Would more gas dilute the old enough to clear all this up. How do you tell if the air mass meter is bad? The weather was so cold 35 degrees I could not handle working on it any longer.

Also, there is another cable (not the cruise control) that is connected to the throttle pulley and runs down between the fire wall and the engine to somewhere. What is that? and why?