Thanks for the additional ideas. This morning the car started normally with the HVAC switch and CCU removed, and I was able to make a grocery store run before SoCal gets some rain (FINALLY!) over the weekend. (I'm about five miles south of the LAX tower separated by at least 15-20 miles of suburban sprawl from any potential wild-fire source.)

The only glitch was the turn signals didn't work. This happened a year or so ago, but they came back. I tested them during the recent work over the last couple of days, and they did function, but recalled that I first tested the four way flasher, which worked. So I turned on the four-way flash for a couple of seconds then shut it off and tried the turn signals again and Voila! they worked. Oh, the "Mercurial-Benz"!

I've got some outside work to do in preparation for the rain, but I'll get to the recommended tests by at least this weekend and will report back.

Duke