Dash Electrical Probs 1981 240d
 

Hi, over the last two months i have been installing and uninstalling transmissons in my 1981 240d mercedes. I finally got the tranny working great so i started checking everything to see if it was driveable. It all looked good except for the engine oil. It was alittle below the minium oil requirment so then i preceded to drive it down the the auto store 2 miles away and put a bunch of oil in it. Since it has been sitting in my grauge and with the door open for a long time i had to jump start it. After jumping it I let it idle for about 15 min before taking it on the road. Once on the road the ride was smooth, shifting was easy, and it seemed to be going great. Once i bought the oil and put it in (about 2 and a half quarts) I turned the key waited for the glow plugs to turn off and then turned it the rest of the way. It only made alittle erm erm then didn't work at all. Five seconts after that smoke started coming out of the left most dashbord vent. I immeadily turned everything off in the car and jumped out. 10 minutes later i went back in the car and tryed to start it. It had power to everything except the instrament pannel and the starter. No smoke came from the engine bay at all. When my dad came along awhile later we tryed jump starting it again but it didn't work because it still had full power. We got it started by push starting it and drove it home. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this or what to replace? If you could give some info that would be great. Its a 1981 240d.

anyone??? Im dieing here

It sounds like you are going to have to do some looking under the dash to see what you smoked. Because this happened when you were trying to crank the engine, I would start by looking at the ignition switch and the associated wires. Have you checked the fuses yet? Whatever shorted out may have blown a fuse that also effected the instruments.

Also, if you had been working on the tranny, is it possible you pinched a wire going to the starter/solenoid, and you had a short to ground when you tried to crank the starter. I would also take a good look at all the wires to the starter.

wires to starter are doing great and i checked all the fuses and the work then i started checking the boxes in the dashboard and it seems the most accesible box in there gets power but no power comes out of it. what do i do with the box to find out if it really doesn't work. do you just replace it? thx