I've made real progress from the advice I've gotten on this Forum!

I was led to figure out that it was the fuel pump relay that needed replacing for one thing. However - in the last few days - twicde the car has not started while the starter motor was working fine. As a temporary remedy for the broken fuel relay is to hot wire fuses #4 and #6 - I tried that - as motor turning and not starting is exactly what the broken relay does. So - I hotwired the fuses and shazaam it started! I then removed the hotwire - while car running - and everything was fine! Then the engine started normally a few times without incident? So this is a preventive querry. What would cause a chronic fuel pump relay going out? Thanks

And - share my joy; I bought this '86 wagon for $300. It needed a ball joint and a new drive pulley. It even gets good milage! Whooopeee!

 

You still need to replace your fuel pump relay. When they fail they become intermittent first giving you the symptoms that it starts at one time then not the next. You can repair the relays as usually the problem is cracked solder joints on the little circuit board inside. If your handy with a soldering iron, re-solder the cracked joints and away you go.

Just to let you know, jumpering the two fuses is a nice diagnostic method of checking out the fuel pumps. It is not recommended as a permanent solution.

 

'86 240 DL wagon - Thanks for reply. I replaced the fuel pump relay and that is no longer a problem. What happens is that sometimes it won't start and it stinks of gas so it must be flooding. If I link fuses 4 and 6 to activate the fuel pump relay - when it's flooded - it starts! A symptom is that when I go to accelerate from a dead stop - engine warm - if I push the gas down just a little too much - it sort of pauses before taking off. I think something to do with the accelerator mechanism is off.
Once warm I don't touch the gas to restart. Unless that doesn't work. Then I do use gas - push all the way down and let up and then try to start. This not starting only happens occasionally - like once out of twenty starts. Why would linking the fuses make it start? Seems almost unrelated - I just happened to have tried it the first time because of my former fuel pump relay problem - I thought it was that again - and discovered that hotwiring the fuses overided the flooding pronblem.

 

if your engine is actually flooded, bypassing the relay without waiting time for the fuel to evaporate at all isn't a solution. Or it's not flooded I should say.
A flooded engine washes the cylinder walls causing lack of compression and soaks the plugs to the point they can't fire. Just Bypassing the relay and adding even more fuel doesn't make sense that it start then if it was actually flooded to the point of a no start.


Hesitation and intermittent starting are 2 different things that may or may not be related.

If your still having to bypass the relay to start the vehicle you haven't fixed the problem. Fuel pump circuit is faulty.