R129 trunk light not coming on - fixed

[R129mine]

hi

i have owned my R129 for nearly 8 years now and one of the things that really bugged me was the fact that the trunk light would not come on when you opened the trunk, you could manually switch it on by moving the yellow switch but this was not the anwser

I found on this mb site

Trunk Light - Page 2 - Mercedes-Benz Forum

that the problem is caused by the top of the plastic yellow switched having been broken off (Seems a common issue) and you either replace the boot lock mechanism or you apply a rubber band, later someone posted a picture of using a metal pin instead.

so when i tried the rubber band trick it set of my car alarm when i lock the car. not good.

so i went ahead and purchased a new boot lock mechanism on ebay and confirmed via some pictures that the yellow plastic bits were fully intact.

but when it arrived it transpired that the top bit of the yellow switch was also broken off.

but at least i had something to try now and if it went wrong i had a spare switch to play with

so out came the 2mm drill, put a pin in it and voila, trunk light is now working as it should.


btw there is no need to put a camera in your boot to ensure the light actually goes off when you close the lid, you can just look at the left license plate light at the back as it is the same one used to light up the boot

not so easy to spot in daylight, but at night it is obvious

 

[R129mine]

3 years later finally found the correct plastic clip


and installed it this evening


Finally back in the original state, my hack from 3 years ago started to play up (and if light remains on when you set the alarm 60 seconds later the alarm goes off, worse if things go wrong in the middle of the night alarm goes off in the middle of the night)