PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - 1981 380sl 3.8l 107 vacuum diagram and other questions

Richard Wooldridge · #3 03-25-2006, 10:32 PM

Hi there,
You can download the vacuum diagrams from the unwiredtools.com website. Their diagrams are simplified in that they are laid out better and also if you have a color printer they show the colors of the tubing. I am assuming your climate control is the ACII version, the same as my '79 450SL has. It has the servo unit under the hood that dies an early death.
You can get those original vacuum diagrams by purchasing one of the CD's that are available on Ebay, they also show the wiring diagrams. They are very hard to see and use, I found.
People say that the usual cause of the cruise control control unit's failure is poor solder joints inside the can that's mounted above the driver's footwell, and that you can many times fix it by simply resoldering the joints. If the joints are like the ones in the tachometer amplifier that my '82 300D uses, the reason they are bad is that Mercedes uses poor solder. Use solder sucker braid to remove as much of the old solder and resolder using good quality 60/40 rosin core solder.
On your power antenna, make sure it is a Hirschmann, that is the OEM antenna. If it is, try taking it apart and cleaning it up, occasionally you can fix it by just cleaning up the old grease and crud inside the antenna box. If it's corroded too badly you will have to buy a new one. If the mast is what's bad, you can get a new mast for the Hirschmann at Performance Products.