Gents, update. After triple checking the fuse box, come to find out that the metal filament of the fuse was broken in the weirdest place--right on the cap. This led me to replace it, and lo-and-behold, the entire instrument cluster sprung back to life! I subsequently checked every fuse in the box and on my other benzes. I no longer trust the visual method of checking these fuses.

Furthermore, the tick tock that I heard? The 999.9 mile counter on the odometer gauge cluster is no longer functioning. Every one tenth of a mile, the odometer ticks and tocks. Weirdly enough though, the main odometer continues to count the correct mileage. I will have to pull out the cluster and either disable the 999.9 counter or try to repair it.

In the meanwhile, I get an annoying tick tock every tenth of a mile

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