I have a question for those here with much more experience than I. I have recently acquired an '85 500SEL for a good price and have set about making it driveable: new fuel lines, new rear brake line, new bilsteins all around, an oil change, belt tightening etc. I have driven the car a little over 5k miles and have noticed nothing but smoothness EXCEPT for loads of heat coming out of the Dash/center console.

Like many old 126 s-class's my acc unit seems to be inoperative. It only blows hot air no matter what. I think the problem is the mono-valve is shot and the a/c is not charged/leaking etc--I am content to drive with the windows open for now. The problem is the heat coming through the center console makes the radio so hot that it malfunctions, spits out the tape adapter for my iPod, and then clicks on and off for a few minutes. I find that opening the ashtray lets some heat out (into the cabin ) and prolongs the time I can use the stereo/tape adapter. The heat under the drivers side near the pedals is also very hot, as I found out on a recent jaunt across Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in sandals.

My question is, where the heat coming from (duh the engine?)? and how can I mitigate it? Is it there because I am not using the acc system? would getting the a/c running get rid of the heat?

What say you, O forum?