240D radio troubleshooting
My 1981 Mercedes 240D still has the original Becker Europa 596 Radio. This is one of the last of the analogue radios before the cars moved to the digital radio with the Becker Grand prix 612. The main issue with the Becker is that it does not stay in tune. I’m constantly having to adjust it to stay on an FM station. In addition, the bulb that illuminates the face is blown.
The Europa 596 was the lower end radio supplied by Mercedes Australia. It was the main radio supplied in most W123 models from 1979 to mid 1981. It has mechanical radio presets, a cassette player and AM/FM function. The Europa 596 does not have the ‘wunderbar’ auto seek function or the auto-reverse feature as found on the Becker Mexico cassette 374 that was installed in my 1979 Mercedes 280SE.
These radios have a black plastic face with the ‘washing machine’ style knobs. Personally I don’t think they are nearly as elegant as the pinstripe radios. They do it in well in a base model like a 240D that has the black plastic console.
In order to test the radio properly, and send it off to be repaired, I decided to remove it from the car.
Removal of these radios is similar to other Becker analogue radios. The knobs pull off, allowing the face to be removed. Unlike on the pinstripe radios, the surround stays on the radio. Hiding behind the face are the two brackets that secure the radio to the car.
The 240D is very original in that it still has the original radio, and the factory fader is still in place. However, when I removed the radio, I noticed something rather odd. Screwed to the back of the radio was a relay controlling the antenna. This is rather odd, as the power for the antenna is just a trigger, and the antenna gets its power from a separate harness. In principle, there is nothing wrong with it, but I didn’t like how it was getting the power from the hazard switch. The power to the radio and cigarette lighter would have been a far more sensible approach.
I wondered if the antenna in the boot had been wired up to take power from this setup, so I checked the antenna in the boot. While the antenna didn’t look factory, it was wired up as I would expect with a grey trigger wire and a power wire. Going back to the radio, the additional relay had two blue wires going through the centre console. One was blue/grey and the other blue/brown. Turns out the blue/brown wire was the antenna trigger. Not sure what the other one is for.
I decided to remove the whole setup. While the Europa 596 was out to be serviced, I installed the trusty old Europa II I had in the 250SE for a while. The Europa II is also a once piece unit and has basically the same connections as the 596. It certainly wouldn’t do to drive the W123 around with no Becker. The Europa II is what was installed in US Market 300Ds in this era (the 240 getting the Europa Mono).
The Europa II looks great in the dash, and and it’s tempting to leave it there. However, the 596 is the original radio, and I will re-install it assuming it can be fixed.
While I was playing around with the antenna trigger, I accidently blew the fuse. When I went to change it, the fuses were badly oxidized, so I decided to change them all. This is something I like to do with a newly acquired Benz.
