I bought an 84 300TD this weekend, and drove it home with one working headlight (left). As I pulled into my driveway, I pulled the lighting switch out to see the fog lights work again (did this a few times on the drive home), and the one working headlight and fogs died on me.

I got to fiddling with the fuses, and they looked good initially. However, the plastic in the fuse block is slightly melted up in the upper right, which is the lighting fuses. A couple of them had obviously gotten hot at some point. After fiddling, now I have the LEFT headlight and high beams working, but not the right (opposite of when I drove it home!). Cleaned the ground bundle by the right headlight and filed the fuse ends to get them clean in my "fiddling." Any advice would certainly be appreciated... that fuse block should not be getting that hot.

Thanks!

Chris

Anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Replace the fuses , sometimes they look okay but can be making bad connections .
I have replaced mine mostly with the all metal type not the color plastic ones, The metal ones hold up better.
I can say that I have had problems that I thought were bad bulb contacts with all of the various lighting, wiring , and problems with other windows not working intermittley and have found most of the time the copper clips that hold the fuses in place can be dirty causing the same type of problem. Hope this helps.

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A couple of Ford pickups F 150,250, 350 missed.
1983 240 D 256,000 miles ,auto, ac.

Did you check the headlight to make sure it is a working unit?

I know like I said dumb...

My 240 has had all kinds of problems with the contact made between bulbs and holders and the fuse holders etc... I cleaned every contact I could find onthe car but still had to gerry rig one bulb in the tailights to make it work consitantly.

The heat thing would indicate to me a short somewhere in the system. You can test it at the fuse block with a ohm meter to see if the positive lead is shorted to the body somewhere. Make sure that the correct amperage fuses are installed. This may have had a short before and the PO put in an oversize fuse to compensate for it blowing fuses. This is all too common unfortuantely...

Take your time and I'm sure the solution will appear if you track the problem logically. Luckily this is probably not an under dash issue. What a PITA that stuff is to test while you lay on your back.

The blown fuse on the fogs is probably due ot the fact that the two fogs are wired together so when you turned them on the bad wiring on the non-working headlight side shorted and blew the fuse. Anyway, the wiring on the passenger side sounds like the problem. Probably where it goes through a body part i.e. where it is tied to a frame piece or travels through a hole in a frame piece.
You get the picture.

Good luck.

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'99 S420 - Mommies
'72 280SE 4.5 - looking to breathe life into it
'84 300SD Grey - Sold
'85 300SD Silver - Sold
'78 Ski Nautique

Thanks for the advice! I replaced both headlight units just in case with brand new ones. I'm wondering if maybe the fuse contacts were in fact corroded enough to keep the left headlight from working when i drove it home, and THAT might have heated the fuse block up a bit. Hopefully just cleaning the contacts and putting new fuses in will cure what ails. I'll have a go at that as time permits. I'm still de-rusting the rear hatch at the moment, so the car's off the road anyway.

Thanks!

Chris

Gentlemen,

I had new Euro lights installed on our TE by my favorite independent mechanic. The lights are great, but the passenger side fog light does not work. (Driver's side fog works fine.) My mechanic says that it is not getting any electricity. Does anyone have a wiring schematic for the fog light?

Thank you!

Bob

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'94 E500 Anthracite
'92 300E 4Matic (donated to charity)
'90 300TE 4Matic