The climate controls in my '82 300D haven't worked correctly since this car wandered into my life 5+ years ago. I don't drive the car in sloppy/winter weather, so this hasn't been the biggest issue for me, but we're heading into a cold but dry fall, which is shaping up to be an excellent time to keep on chugging, so long as I can keep my hands from going numb while driving.
The monovalve seems to be working fine (I can regulate output air temperature) and I replaced the blower motor last fall because I was in a time crunch and didn't have time to fuss with changing out the brushes on the original blower. Even then, though, I still had the standard symptoms that the climate control system will only operate in defrost mode. The A/C is long non-functional, of course, due to an extended period of vehicular neglect prior my ownership; I'm just trying to get the economy modes to operate.
After returning from a short drive this afternoon, I pulled the climate control assembly this afternoon to inspect it for possible cracked solder joints. A quick visual inspection doesn't show anything particularly dramatic on that front, though I'm going to re-flow all the edge connectors anyway. However, I found that a portion of the system board was very warm to the touch, with circuit board discoloration where at least one relay is located. Like I almost always do, except when I'm defrosting my windows, I run my car with the temperature wheel turned all the way down and the system turned off. Shouldn't all power be cut to the climate controls in that mode? Should I actively be worried about a bad mechanical relay, or is what I'm seeing similar to the "always on" nature of the cruise control unit (at least until it fails)?
I hope to further disassemble the unit to expose both sides of the board tomorrow (ran out of time tonight). Since this isn't the evil KLIMA I system and spares are generally available, should I start querying the list for a replacement set of controls (or boards) instead of potentially desoldering and replacing board components?
Thanks for any advice you can provide!
--Conrad J.
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