My 1987 300E suddenly developed some sort of sporadic loose or poor electrical connection somewhere.
A week ago the radio (Blaupunkt replacement) suddenly went dead, no lights at all on radio panel. It then would come back on and the antenna would re-raise. It happened briefly the first day, then went dead for a longer period of time, then would suddenly come back on. Examined the fusebox connections and replaced radio fuse with new red one with no change.
Yesterday it went dead and I reached up to switch the sunroof up and found it was dead too, although I could hear a light growling like the motor was trying to do something. When the radio was playing, I used the sunroof switch the radio went dead then came back on when I released the sunroof switch.
Car starts fine and runs great. Headlights, turn signals, brake lights work fine. Interior lights all bright and dashboard instruments work fine.
Today it was raining and with the radio and sunroof dead, the windshield wipers were also dead. The power windows were dead too although their lights were on in the console. Several miles into my trip all came back on. Radio blaring, windshield wiper came on, windows worked, sunroof worked. Stopped car and hour later when I came out to drive home radio, wipers, sunroof dead, but windows worked this time. I opened the glovebox door and the light was dim orange so slight voltage is flowing. I can push the display light on the radio and it lights up with time but won't play radio or CD and goes back dead after a second or two. Starting or stopping hard do not seem to trigger it. Seems to be just not flowing full 12 volts to the radio, sunroof and wipers systems.
Got home, shut off car, then turned ignition back on and everything working fine and glovebox light now bright.
Where do I start looking?!!
Pete Cowper California