I took my 300D into the shop on Monday. After hitting a pothole in this beautiful city of Houston on Friday , my air conditioner suddenly ceased to operate. I tried pushing all buttons on my pushbutton ACC unit. Nothing. So, the weather cooled down a little thanks to a coldfront and I could do without it, but would get hotter, so Monday, I took it in to the indy, and he told me that he would test the pushbutton unit, but before I left, we looked at the fusebox, and one of the fuses had burned a bit of plastic. He told me it was a common problem on 123's. So, he cleaned the fusebox, and tested the pushbutton unit while he was at it, and everything's fine now. The A/C works, and I no longer have to hit the passenger's side footwell cover to get the fan going. So, how can I avoid the problem of melting fusebox plastic on my 123? I like the way everything is operating now.
-Joe

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'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Switch all the fuses to brass/copper instead of the tin. Make sure your A/C clutch wires aren't shorting.

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1984 300D Turbo - 4-speed manual conversion, mid-level resto

1983 300D - parts car

1979 300TD Auto - Parts car.

1985 300D Auto - Wrecked/Parts.


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"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". Lewis Carrol

not shorting maybe? i thought shorting was bad.

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currently
[1981 300 td tdidi 165500 dark brown/palamino-Brownie-mine-3k miles of ownership
1983 240d 162+++ Anthricite grey w/ henna red interior and hella lights-wifes car-Red

the above two cars are for sale
and can be seen on the cars for sale thread here. pix also available.


240d-144+ Manilla Yellow w/ palmino interior-greasecar kit-Blondie-the college kids car

23" gt 21 speed still on original tires-still got the nubs
21" khs tandem

Yes upgrade the fues and clean EVERY termainal contact as you change out the fues. This will cure 99% of any ills for another 10 years.

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1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair

Sorry, should be "aren't", edited to correct my typical f**k up.

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1984 300D Turbo - 4-speed manual conversion, mid-level resto

1983 300D - parts car

1979 300TD Auto - Parts car.

1985 300D Auto - Wrecked/Parts.


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"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". Lewis Carrol

I went down to O'Reily's Auto Parts, and I found some copper blue and red fuses located behind the regular tin/aluminum fuses, but no white ones with the copper. So, I'm going to install the ones I have. The contacts in the fusebox have already been cleaned, so, all I need to do is install the copper ones I currently have, unless there's some reason not to mix copper and regular fuses together that I've not heard of.
-Joe

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'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Good stuff this electrcickery info.....

thread called: "fusebox "fix"" has some other info. I don't know how to link or combine threads but for generations of future searchers I thought I would add the refferral.....

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Rob M
Norwich, VT USA
1980 240D Euro delivery 4 speed manual silver/blue
~160K miles

I changed the fuses with copper ones, but then, the infamous fuse #8 melted. I put another fuse in it, started the car, and turned on the air and took a look at the fuse. It was smoking a bit, so I turned the car off, and called my indy. I told him the situation, and he told me to put one of the blue 25A fuses in place of the usual red 16A fuse and the melting would stop. I did it, and turned the car on, and turned the air conditioning on, and it did fine, no smoking or melting, so far. I have not driven it since I changed the fuses out, I just hope my drive to church in the morning is uneventful.
-Joe

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'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Ok, I'm just going to remove the fuse and have no air in the morning. I just read that changing a lower type rated fuse with a higher type rated fuse is a fire risk.
-Joe

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'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

i'd try and see how many amps its drawing when its on, you might want to try that with the higher fuse in first.

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1980 500SE/AMG Euro
1981 500SEL Euro
1982 380SEL
1983 300TD
1983 500SEC/AMG Euro
1984 500SEC
1984 300TD Euro
1986 190E 2.3-16
1986 190E 2.3
1987 300D
1997 C36 AMG
2003 C320T 4matic

past: 1969 280SE 4.5 | 1978 240D | 1978 300D | 1981 300SD | 1981 300SD | 1982 300CD | 1983 300CD | 1983 300SD | 1983 380SEC | 1984 300D | 1984 300D | 1984 300TD | 1984 500SEL | 1984 300SD | 1985 300D | 1986 300E | 1986 560SEL | 1986 560SEL/Carat | 1987 560SEC | 1991 300D 2.5 | 2006 R350

i got the fuse upgrade kit from **************.com and it made a few differences in how things worked and the dash lightened up a bit?

but since doing that my battery is not charging correctly. this was pretty much the only change i made to the car excluding changing the interior lights over to xenon bulbs (which work great BTW).

it's strange because everything was going so good.

then when i went to fuel up yesterday morning i pulled up to an out of order pump and when i went to restart it didn't want to crank at all so i pulled the key and let the GP's heat up turned it and vroom it went. when i pulled up to a good pump - i just let it run while it was filling up and went about my way.

when i was leaving work later that day it would not start and i had to get a jump. it ran like a champ all the way home but then wouldn't start again w/o a jump.

having read a post here about battery drain and the trunk light, i pulled that just to be sure. but the battery was so taxed this morning that the GP light wouldn't even come on. (of course that annoying buzzer did though).

Think there could be a connection with the fuse change? here is why i ask i replaced all the fuses correctly, didn't thouroghly clean out the box, but the connections were all clean, and no corrosion was present. the only thing i can think of is that there was one glass tube fuse in position a or maybe it was 8 and i replaced that with one of the ceramic style fuses... do the 123 fuse boxes normally have a glass style fuse in there?

otherwise it is just a coincidence. the alt looks newer than the engine - in fact pretty new over all.

I am suspecting (hoping) is is simply the voltage regulator - but i don't know. i got one from an 83 300d and once i got it home it looke like it wouldn't fit. it's that or my alt or some connection is funky somewhere.

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1979 Thistle Green 300D 272,xxx miles
1984 Orient Red 300 D 4 spd Euro Import - 189,xxx miles
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Lofat Productions
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whoops - i didn't mean to hijack your thread Joe.

i just meant to say that the white ones are at **************.com

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1979 Thistle Green 300D 272,xxx miles
1984 Orient Red 300 D 4 spd Euro Import - 189,xxx miles
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Lofat Productions
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I think that I have found the fix to my blowing fuse #8 problem. This should take care of it I think. Will it?
http://www.performanceproducts4benz.com/productpage.aspx?pid=102731&name=Fuse%20Box-Blower%20Repair&part=54-280
-Joe

__________________
'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.

Joe, I know that all W124's and W126's that I've seen have the blower motor fuse outside the fusebox. The relocation kit that Performance Products has should fix your problem. The new fuse is a 30 amp strip fuse (looks like the fuse in the glowplug relay box) and is contained in a black "coffin".

You know, I think this may be a problem with the manufacturer of the fuse, and the location of the fuse. I purchased the 16A and 25A fuses at O' Reily's, they have the copper ends on them, so I took the old aluminum end OEM 16A fuse out of #8, which was working fine at the time, and replaced it with the new, Buss brand 16A copper end fuse. It melted. So, I removed it for the time being, and replaced it with another Buss. It melted too. So, what I am going to try tommorow after school is to place the old OEM fuse back in and see if it melts. If it doesn't, I know a place that sells OEM fuses with copper ends on them, and I'll run by there, if it does melt, then hello MB recommended fuse box blower fuse repair kit.
-Joe

__________________
'81 MB 300SD, '82 MB 300D Turbo (sold/RIP), '04 Lincoln Town Car Ultimate

Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
-German Narrator in a MB Promotion Film about the then brand new W123.