Hello all, I am new to this forum. I have a 1984 190D 5 speed I bought as a running and driving project. The car had been sitting a long time before I bought (10+ years) it but was running and driving. Currently working on cleaning up the sunfaded paint and cleaning interior while I want for the new fuel, oil, and air filters.

The problem I am having is:
both my headlights High and Low beam don't work at all.
All taillights work, reverse, running, brake, turn.
driver side fog light works but left side does not its cracked so I am not that worried about it until I can source a new lens.
parking lamp on right side works but not the left side.
driver side front turn signal doesn't work.
No lights in the interior work at all even headlight switch is turned on. But the headlight switch seems to work cause fogs, parking, and tails come on.
Since it is getting dark by 5pm now I need these headlights at least working.


I have new fuses on the way but they don't arrive until wednesday so I can replace all the fuses in the fusebox.
I have replaced the headlight sealed beams and that did not fix it. I saw on mercedessource he had a weird issue with headlights and wiper coming on, he solved it by cleaning and tightening the grounds which I plan to do today once I get the courage to brave the cold. Can someone tell me where every ground is on this car? I don't have a service manual and I tried searching online but could not find anywhere that points them out.

Thanks for help in advance.

I think there's a good chance that the issue is fuses that no longer work. I would suggest you wait until you get the new fuses installed and then see what happens. If the new fuses don't solve the problems then you'll know you need to start looking elsewhere. I also suggest you purchase a Haynes manual for your car. They're not real expensive and they can be ordered online. The Haynes manual is a very good source of information with pictures for your car. Throwing parts at a car without solving the problem can get very expensive very quickly. Don't hesitate to continue to ask for help.

Update

Today I changed all the fuses. Wow half of them were really bad, some fell apart as I took them out so I cleaned the contacts in the fuse holder and replaced every single fuse with a new one.

All windows now work (although the passenger side rear window is really slow), dash lights work, sunroof works although I didn’t test it completely cause it didn’t sound great. Power antenna doesn’t go up but I hear the motor when I turn the car off. I’ll have to check that out if I can ever get the trunk open -_-

Still waiting on my 80amp strip fuse for the glow plug relay though. And my fuel prefilter, I have new oil filter and fuel filter so I’ll be changing all the filters in the next couple days and oil.

But Headlights low and high beam still don’t work. every other exterior light works except for the driver side front parking light? But all turn signals work. I guessing I will have to check the grounds for the headlights I’ll do that tomorrow the days are so short now it’s already dark. the car is parked on the street so I don’t desire to be run over by someone on their phone.

I took the passenger side headlight assembly out completely and saw the ground behind it was rusty so I cleaned up both the surface and the eyelet thingy on the wire but that did not solve the problem that headlight still doesn’t work. I’m going to test if I even have power to the headlight with a multimeter.

Another update

I checked for power across the fuses for the low beam headlights number 17 and 18. And I have no power at all. What exactly do I go from here? Check the switch?

Checking the switch sounds like a good next step since this seems to be the area that's still not working.