It's an '84 W123; 300D.

The stock cigarette lighter was part of the ashtray. It had (absolutely past tense) some sort of contact underneath that remained intact when the ashtray was operated, opened, etc. It was one of those things that you realized you were never gonna fix as soon as you saw it. Metal fatigue is a MFer.

I bought this car on the road in Oregon when my SDL blew its radiator. As luck would have it the Indy yard in Eugene where I was towed had this low miles cherry looking 123 on the lot. I quickly realized the cigarette lighter was not going to work. I got some advice here about using the glove box light wires. This after I couldn't find a terminal under the dash. My SDL has a really nice semi protected terminal where you can get 12 V pretty easily.

The cigarette lighter idea worked until recently. I kept blowing the number five fuse. Also operates the radio. I thought maybe the radio was getting funky and shorting. I think it was the lighter fixture all along. When I finally hit on that as a possibility, I bought a new one, it was the same brand. But the one in the van was also the same O'Reillys cheapo and it has worked perfectly. What are the odds that I would buy another one that was bad? When I was trying to chase it down at one point I put in a new fuse with nothing in the socket. It immediately burnt. So I unhooked the charger from all wires and did a continuity test between the positive and ground leads. Resistance quickly went down to zero. The damn things were connecting somehow inside. I was so close to getting this right. I really need a mobile charger.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K