BMW Repair: 86 325e engine shuts off, check fuel, pressure fuel

Question
I have a 1986 325e which developed two problems about the same time. I am not sure if they are related or not.

1. The car began to flood when starting, if the starting routine was interrupted before the engine was running. If I hold the key until it is running, it is fine. Otherwise it floods and I have to wait about a hlaf hour or more to try again.

2. The engine will shut off while driving. It started by shutting off for a second or so. That became longer as time went on. Now it will shut off and not start again for several hours. In fact it is sitting on the roadside right now.

I have replaced the ingnition relay, high pressure fuel pump, and coil, as well as doing a tune up.

Answer
Pete,
 You need to figure out what is wrong.  Check the spark, check fuel supply etc.  Make sure you have plenty of both.

 IF it's flooding, and you see black smoke out the tail pipe, and smell raw fuel... then it could be a stuck injector, and it's squirting fuel all the time.  This isn't very common (in my experience), but it doesn happen.  It really sounds like you have two problems, one the flooding, and two the shut off while driving.  When the car shuts off, see if you have spark, it could be a ground randomly making connection or something.

 Hope this helps,
 Josh