I have been keeping careful track of my mileage, particularly using WVO, and I just saw that my last tank of WVO was near empty on 170 miles when it normally goes to 250! Concerned, today I watched my odometer and saw that it was moving at only half the distance I moved. That is, on my 13 mile drive this morning the odometer showed about a 7 mile change, a 2 to 1 ratio. This must have just happened. I assume I will be doing some odometer work soon, as my mileage is something important for me to look at as I make changes and this may just be the beginning of it failing completely. I will search for some advice on repairing the odometer on this site. Maybe while I am at it I can fix the tachometer also.... Yet another project!

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dannyf
1984 Mercedes 300 SD 214 K miles. Runs on WVO ~ 22 mpg over 8 K on WVO
1997 VW Passat TDI 156 K miles. Uses biodiesel and diesel. ~ 41 mpg
1996 Mercury Villager gasser. ~ 20 mpg

Pull the instrument panel.
Remove the speedo. You will need to remove side gages prior to speedo.
Disassemble the speedo head from the case.
Look for the gear drive on the side.
The slipping gear will be the one that is on the odometer (not trip) shaft.
Slip the shaft out far enough to broach some spining on the shaft using a toothed pliers. Some people glue the gear on, but that scares me!
Reassemble.

You need to be careful about keeping the odo wheels inline, I use a spare shaft to feed in as I push the original out.

Jim

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14 E250 BlueTEC black. 45k miles
95 E320 Cabriolet Emerald green 66k miles
94 E320 Cabriolet Emerald green 152k miles
85 300TD 4 spd man, euro bumpers and lights, 15" Pentas dark blue 274k miles

Nope...
he has an SD... gonna need some plastic gears replaced... a search on here will find some sites that sell the gear sets, I did a search on yahoo for MB speedometer gears or something like that and found original vdo brass insert gears and another company that sells replacement plastic gears...
http://www.performanceproducts4benz.com/productpage.aspx?pid=111529&name=Speedo+Repair+Gears
and here...http://www.odometergears.com/

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

I had the same problem on my 82 300sd. I replaced the plastic gears and ordered them from http://www.odometergears.com. I ordered the set of three gears for $65. It is a pretty simple repair.

Great, thank you!

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dannyf
1984 Mercedes 300 SD 214 K miles. Runs on WVO ~ 22 mpg over 8 K on WVO
1997 VW Passat TDI 156 K miles. Uses biodiesel and diesel. ~ 41 mpg
1996 Mercury Villager gasser. ~ 20 mpg

Without opening the OD, is there any way to know the # of teeth in the OD gears? It seems like I could have 1 of 3 choices and I cannot order until my OD is open....

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dannyf
1984 Mercedes 300 SD 214 K miles. Runs on WVO ~ 22 mpg over 8 K on WVO
1997 VW Passat TDI 156 K miles. Uses biodiesel and diesel. ~ 41 mpg
1996 Mercury Villager gasser. ~ 20 mpg