HEAT!! I have HEAT!!! Yipee! (it's 16 degrees today)
 

So, yesterday When I talked to the guy at the shop, he said he would test a couple things (at $85 per hour) and let me know what happened. My first instinct was to just bring it home and deal with no heat.
I decided to let him change out one thing, the amp, and tell me what he found.
Putting a new amp in caused HEAT!!! It wasn't the servo (yet) it was the amp stopped working.
So, I told him to leave it, charge me and I'll pick it up today.
So it's a happy-ish ending. Still more expensive than buying the part and replacing myself, but okay.
If the tranny gets done (I'm NOT putting all bets on the reverse band adjustment) then I will have spend less than $500 getting it all fixed!
If the RBA doesn't work, I'm stealing the tranny out of the DHs 79 SD for my car. His isn't running do to a very sneaky electrical problem. I now think of it as just a parts car.

Happy Dancing with the Fingers. . .

I hear you about the heat. It amazing how much of a glamour item it is when you dont have it. Now I am literally drenched in sweat by the time I pull into work with it on all the way.

Can you be a little more specific? What is 'the amp'?

The amp
 

The servo is the part inside the engine compartment that the coolant goes through and is the biggest, most expensive part of the climate control system. The amplifyer is inside the cabin, behind the glove box and it sends power to the servo (right guys?).
I was told that is the amp goes out it can fry the servo. Shop guys wanted to replace both pieces at a rate of $1500 for me to have heat.
I told him to start at the back and replace one thing at a time and test to make sure things that didn't need replaced didn't GET replaced.
I was right.

...and can you be a little more specific...what is the sneaky electrical problem with the other car? We need to keep all the W116 300SDs running:o

Rick

I WISH I knew what the problem was.
The gauges work sometimes, the vaccum system doesn't work at all.
The battery dies over night.
The car doesn't stop running unless you first LOCK THE DRIVER DOOR, turn off the key and allow the engine to just die. Of course it doesn't lock,

We had the car in to the SAME shop and they had it for a week and 'fixed' it. I ran nicely for one week and never started again. It can't even be jump started.
During that week in the shop, the power disty module got replaced as well as a battery cable. Battery was pretty new.

Symptoms of bad things:
When car was turned off, the red lights on the instrum panel wouldn't go out. Sometimes if you opened and closed the door they would go out.
The temp gauge would read that the engine was overheating even though it was fine and right on temp.
After the week of most all gauges working including the clock, which never worked before, Tom went out and the car wouldn't start. Battery dead and it hasn't started since.

I have a vague recollection that high current draw on the auxilliary water pump can fry the amp. I'd either disconnect the auxilliary water pump or put a fuse in the hot wire to it to avoid burning up your new amp. (someone else might confirm this. It's possible that this situation only arises on non-servo 123's).
Given your electrical symptoms on the SD, I'd try replacing the alternator.
You have a door vacuum problem on the SD. I'd simply plug off the lock vacuum system in the short term. You'll have to manually control the door locks but your engine shut off should work.

Try disconnecting the vacuum line to the shut-off diaphragm on the the injection pump. Not being able to start should not be an electrical problem as long as there is juice to crank it.

If the battery hasn't been recharged and it has been sitting a while the battery might be toast. They don't take well to long periods of being discharged.

Congrats on getting that Type II ACC working!! I would do as others have suggested and unplug the aux water pump or put a fuse inline with it.

Its a problem on everything with an aux water pump. It will fry the amp on a servo car, and on the non-servo cars (my W124s at least) whenever the aux pump is used, it will detect an overcurrent situation, go to a "failsafe" mode (AKA *FULL* heat), and then try to regulate temperature again. The aux pump is currently unplugged on my 2.5T.

So, I'm curious. Before this was fixed, did you have ANY heat, i mean did the defroster work or was everything out? My 300CD has blazing defroster but using either hi or lo produces nothing. I have a parts car 300d that most likely has a good amp hiding behind the glove box, but until tonight I didn't even know it existed. Thanks.

what year cars are we talking, bogidu?

I had ZERO heat. Teh defrost would come on and blow the cold air from outside. The others didn't work at all. I tried all the buttons out last night and this morning and they all produce the heat they are supposed to.
It was so nice getting into a warm car today. My kids didn't complain or fight over the blanket I had in the back seat so they would be warmer on the way to school.

Congrads for you, on the other hand I STILL HAVE NO HEAT! And damnit I'll tell you being a smoker and a commuter at over 90 miles a day to school 5 days a week, it ain't a walk in the park. Air wont blow through my vents, the blower must be fried.

I've gotten used to it HOWEVER with a little ingenuity I've figured out that over 65mph with the sunroof tilted up, theres a vacuum created that sucks warm air through the vents just enough to where you can feel it licking your hand gently near the steering wheel. And aw shoot is it sure spoiling me.. I was doing so good until I figured that out :D