Becker Europa II w109
 

I have the Becker 2 Europa in my 300Sel 4.5. After stopping for gas (a constant ritual all vintage Mercedes owners share) my radio suddenly stopped getting power. I checked all the under dash fuses (which are new) and cleaned the terminals. I then checked the fuses in the rectangular boxes along the firewall still to no avail. I saw a picture from a 108 that made it look like the box with the knob is for the radio. There were 2 good fuses in there. Radio still doesn't get power.

I checked th back of the radio for a fuse and couldn't find one. Now, this issue included a radio I can't get back into the dash, the bare unit sits flush with the dash. Am I missing something here to get it back in? It seems to be caught on the right side.

Are there any fuses I haven't checked? I'm attaching pictures to outline what I'm talking about.

Best Regards,

David

Fuses along firewall.

Note the radio without facia bracket or facia is flush with dash. Shouldn't it go in another inch?

Sorry for the multiple replies but PP isn't letting me attach several pictures in one post using my iPad...

It looks like the radio slides into the clamp pieces on top and bottom. Wrapped in felt. Funny how they were doing such things even back then to reduce dash noises.

It must be a connection somewhere as the radio suddenly started working this evening. I started it to let the suspension pump up and when I came back outside the radio was on! It looks like I need to investigate the power connections.

You might have a bad ground, which is sometimes called 'earth' in some parts of the world. In tech terms: The negative (-) connection.

These radios ground through the antenna connection to the radio, so you might just pull out the antenna lead and buff it up with some fine sandpaper or a nail file. Make sure to clean up the inside of the antenna socket, too.

Just a little is enough. It does not need to be shiny.

The best thing to do is find a ground, such as a part of the bracket that holds the radio, and run a wire from it to a screw on the body of the radio. Test it to see if it is actually grounded before hooking up to it. It might be too well insulated to make a ground.

If you have already gone nuts trying to determine if power is reaching the radio then it is time to start working on, as they said in the 60's, 'perfecting the ground'.