I am so thrilled to have my first '82 240D, not to mention my first Mercedes Benz period. I've been looking for some time now and finally found a very sweet specimen in great shape. Probably paid too much ($5,000) but I don't care. I will post some pics soon.

I've only owned the car for a week and my wife and I have enjoyed taking it out in the evenings for a spin. My wife drove it to work today and something odd happened. When she went to leave, started, put in reverse, began to back out, and the car stalled. BTW - Its an automatic. It started right back up but by this time, she noticed that the battery light was on, the fuel gauge didn't seem to be working, the temp guage didn't seem to be working, the turn signal indicators and turn signals weren't working. The car was (is) running fine, but these components are not working still. I checked fuses and they all look good.

Any ideas??

 

I hope you are handy fixing cars!
In order to shutoff the Engine after it is Started you have to cut off the Fuel to the Fuel Injection Pump. This is done by way of 2 Vaccuum shutoff Valves.
One on the Fuel Injection Pump and another Valve that is mounted on the Steering Wheel lock and is actualted by a Cam that is turned by your Key.

If you do not get Vacuum you Will not shut of the Engine; with the exception that there is a Manual Shutoff Lever where the Linkages are mounted.
So something wrong with that Vlave on the Steering Wheel Lock could be giving Vacuum at the wront time and causing your car to stall.

The other thing that can do it is if you have an Air leak in your Fuel Supply System. What happen is that part of the Fuel leaks back to the Fuel tank. There is enough Fuel to run the Engine a littlen and then it gets a glub of Air=no Fuel.
If it is a small amout of Air it will pass through your Fuel Injection Pump and you can keep going.
A large amount of Air like if you ran out of Fuel and Cranked the Engine a lot; after putting Fuel in the Tank would require you to Pump And Pump on your Hand Primer Pump (The old style shiny Aluminum Bodied ones can also be source of air leaks) untill you here a buzzing sound fromt the Fuel Injection Pump Housing.
After you hear that sound keep pumping somemore just to be sure. That bleeds the Air out of the Fuel Supply System.
Next you need to Bleed the Air out of the Fuel Injection part of the system. This is done by loosening the Steel Fuel Injection Line Nuts at the Fuel Injectors.
Ounce the nuts are loose and backed off a little you crank the Engine until you see fuel coming out from under all of them. Tighten the Nuts and attempt to start.

When you check Fuses it is best to pull them and take a look at the tips where the make contact. Often they are Oxadixed badly and are not conducting well.

The other Electrical issues could be trouble with the Instrument Cluster Grounds or an Ignition Switch going bad. Only time will tell on that.

 

That is awesome advice and makes sense too. I used to be handy with cars so sounds like I get to brush up on some skills! Very good info about the two vacuum shut-off valves - thanks. I assumed the stall was related to the components not working, since it all happened at the same time. I also wasn't too worried about addressing the stall, since it seemed like a one time event and has not occured since that one time. The electrical components on the other hand are still not working, which is really what has me scratching my head. Now that you mention it, the fuses did appear a little oxidized, and I will re-check as you suggest, but I don't think it's the fuses because the group of components not working doesn't match any logical grouping of items assigned to the fuses. New info, I found out my electric windows (all of them) do not work now and I am guessing they stopped working at the same time as the other items (I just forgot to check them at the time) - prior to this incident - they all worked perfectly. So...

I am deducing that there is some common factor across all these items since they all stopped working at the same time - sound reasonable?

Based on the list of failures - any ideas on what may be common to them? Any more ideas on how to trouble shoot would be wonderful.

Thanks !

 

THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED! I was studying an online manual that someone from this forum had sent and realized there was a relationship of these items to the #12 fuse. Another member suggested that I remove each fuse and check the ends, not just the middle. That was it - the middle was intact but the end had become disconnected - sorry I had missed that before- rookie mistake. Thanks for the feedback.