I just pulled my speedo cluster apart on my 85 380se to fix the broken odometer gears,.....while I have it apart, I thought I might try to address the thousands of tiny speckles on all the interior surfaces of the gauge cluster housing. Guessing my car is not the only one to do this.

To clean or paint it, I would need to remove the clear plastic face.

Can anyone tell me if this can be done?

Brian in Austin

I did this to my SEC. Very carefully split the lens off of the cluster. I then wet sanded the cluster housing (the spots are the plastic deteriorating), washed and sprayed with some flat black paint. Epoxied the whole rig back together, after polishing the lens with some Mcguiars Plastix polish. I had already found some really nice gauge faces and repainted the needles.

In hind sight: The cluster housing is actually a deep flat brown. I had a glare off the flat black until it "toned down" somewhat. Two weeks later I found a nice cluster in a pull-a-part for like $20.00.....

Thanks, thinking a brown shade that dark does not exist. How did you remove the lens face?

IIRC...carefully remove the felt strip surrounding the cluster, use a razor hobby knife and some gentle prying to separate the lens.

What kind of shape is yours in otherwise? Mine was rough; gauge faces faded, needles bleached out, bulbs blown... It might be much easier to source a nice cluster from a yard, swap your speedo head, and paint the needles.

I would try to find one in a yard that doesn't have those spots. Mine is an 84 and doesn't have them. From my putzing around EBay I think the pre-84 clusters have this problem. They must have changed something in the plastic formation in 84. They certainly made a lot of quality improvements to the W126 over the model run. Lots of issues on my 84 have never been problems on my 1990 model. Here is a list of problems with the 84 that aren't an issue on the 89-91 models: ACC pushbutton (even though the later ones can go, I bet the failure rate is 1/20 compared to the First Gen.), rear window glass, dashboard cracking (the later ones are hard plastic compared to pulled vinyl on the earlier ones), dash wood delamination, leather quality/thickness, cluster plastic, etc... The only thing I can think of better on the First Gen is the hood release knobs vs. the plastic pull handles on the later models.

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1990 420 SEL 202,500 Miles
1984 300 SD 375,500 Miles

Just saw that yours is an 85. So much for my theory. It is weird how some of them do what you speak of and some appear unharmed...

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1990 420 SEL 202,500 Miles
1984 300 SD 375,500 Miles

Mine's a 89......cluster was roasted but the rest of the interior other than the console wood was pretty nice.

I got my odometer gears from Odometer Gears.com yesterday, so put things back together. I wiped the inside of the instrument cluster with a damp micro cloth. Didnt get all the little specks,...but probably got 70-80% of them,.....also cleaned all the bulbs and things are a bit more readable now at night.

A friend of mine went to a yard, got out the entire cluster off of w126 wreck, (I will NEVER forget the big grin on his face) and simply REMOVED the orange needles off the cluster put them in a plastic baggie, paid probably near nothing for the nice orange needles, took them home and swapped out his faded yellow needles and put them in his car!

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 197k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV installed 11/2011 ... Wie im Freien Fall. Nur horizontal.

1995 E 420, 159k "The Red Plum"

2011 E350 Sport "The no stress express"

1967 Mercury Cougar, 43k

2011 Subaru Outback, 24k (sold)
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-Accelerate until you see God, wait 3 seconds, then hit the brakes.

Yep needles are easily removed. Use a small fork (the mismatched one in the kitchen drawer; wife will never miss it) as a puller. Put a soft cloth under the "fulcrum" end of the fork to prevent marring the gauge face. Some do take a bit of force so be careful where you place the fork as to not bend the gauge face itself.