I dug in and checked the blower and it is fine. I oiled the bearings while i was there. One of the resistor coils was bent too close to the bimetalic switch. I bent it away and now all is fine.

Thanks for your help sbourg.

Side note: the blower resistors are available separately if the parts guy is willing to look through all the footnotes. it costs ~$200 so i was lucky that mine was repairable.

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1972 450SL
1982 300D Turbo