I bought a 1988 300E several months back. After having a slew of things replaced on the vehicle, I had a noisy a/c fan clutch. I took it in to have it looked at. The service tech said I needed to replace the fan clutch as it was shot. With that done I had hope that the a/c would start working. The tech showed me that the previous owner had put a new switch on the center dash wood somewhere in the top row of buttons. Apparently this button is wired directly to the a/c compressor and the person that did it had cut into the wiring harness and had put a Ford relay somwhere along the wire. It appears that new switch on the dash turns the fan and compressor on and some of the buttons on the original climate control apparently don't work like they should (namely the fan buttons). The tech told me that at some point the a/c system had been converted to R134. He replaced the fan clutch and recharged the system with R134 and the a/c blows cold when I turn on the nutty new switch on the dash but I don't like this set up at all. I also notice an irratic clicking behind the climate control buttons when driving which is very annoying and if I turn the temperature wheel to heating, the clicking turns into a buzzing.

Question:

Why would someone put a switch on the dash to bypass the mercedes climate control for the fan?

What is the clicking/buzzing noise behind the climate control panel?


This appears to be a real mess. The service people said they would have to replace the wiring harness at about 16 hours labor. This sounds like a rip-off. Can't they just remove the hacker's wiring?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Does anybody have any ideas here or is it too messed up to even speculate on?

Thanks

If you are an MB Tech, could you provide me some input?

Thanks a million!