Relay must click when you turn the key on -- you can check this with a helper. Should then click again after about 90 sec or so.

Check to make sure you have power to the relay (terminal 30) and that you get power to the output (strip fuse) after the relay clicks.

If it doesn't click, check the ignition switch wire (brown is a ground, one wire out is to the lamp, the other is the switch wire, don't know the colors off the top of my head). If you have hot there with the key on but no relay click, the relay is bad.

If it does click but you don't get any power to the strip fuse with power on terminal 30, the relay contacts are burned or loose, probably need a new relay.

I don't know which relay you have (this is a W123 correct?), so I don't know if you can get into it or not, but I've heard that water in the relay can corrode some of the traces on the circuit board, causing it to fail. Resolder the trace and it works again.

Otherwise, it's replacement time.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!