No warning cut out

[AUDIJIM@aol.com]

Good morning,

Yesterday, I drove down to Northern Virginia from South Jersey to pick up 
some parts from a friend. I drove my 1987 5000cs TQ. MC1 with IA chip and AAN 
wastegate. Other than that, it's stock. Everything driving down was fine, not a 
problem to complain about. I was driving with the climate control set at ECON 
just to circulate air. The cruise control was on some of the time and off most 
of the time. All the windows were up and the sun roof was tilted up. Temp gage 
was indicating normal/on the cool side. It was between 65 and 70 degrees. On 
the way back, I had a major problem or perhaps, better said as a major hiccup. 
I was on I-95 north, just north past Baltimore, MD. I was driving with 
traffic when without warning I get nothing. Pressing on the GO pedal gets zero 
response. Every light on the dash was on that would have been associated with any 
other engine stall while at speed. Pressing on the clutch pedal brought the 
Tach to zero, releasing let the engine speed indication return. The sun glare was 
so bright, that I could not see my hazard lights on the dash going on/off. I 
made my way to the right lane/shoulder and coasted as far as I could after 
going about 75-80 mph with the traffic. I stopped under a bridge and tried to 
remember if there was anything unusual before this happened. (a word of advise: 
Never stop under a bridge if it's a nice day out. It was so noisy under there 
with my car not running, I couldn't hear my hazard relay working or even if the 
car was running) I closed all my windows and sunroof and tried to listen 
closely at my attempt to restart the engine. It cranked but nothing was happening. 
I let it sit for about a minute and I tried again and it started like nothing 
was wrong. Not wanting to press my luck, I put her in gear and merged into 
traffic under hard boost (1.8 or so) No problems at all for the rest of the 
trip. Trouble shooting from my desk here, I can only think of a couple things. The 
first being that the fuel pump cut out for some reason. The second, I lost 
all ignition spark. I would like to rule out the fuel pump because it is fairly 
new from the spring/summer of 2004. Maybe an ignition switch. May just a tune 
up is needed, but that still doesn't give way to the abrupt cut off at highway 
speed yesterday.

Any idea's? I haven't done any real trouble shooting yet. The last time the 
car had a real thorough tune-up was right before I left for Atlanta, GA after 
9/11. The car just turned 285,000+ miles as of yesterday.




Jim Furdyn
1983 UrQuattro #170 
1987 4000cs Q
1987 Euro 200/5000cs TQ 285,000 miles
1996 A6 Quattro Avant 
1987 Mercedes Benz Truck model 1219