Added a "Cruise Control" indicator - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

JamesDean · #16 10-17-2012, 08:26 PM

I do believe the label tape has the inks/pigments in it and the print head on the label maker simply "activates" them in a certain fashion to make the labels.

cullennewsom · #17 10-17-2012, 08:35 PM

I think that white is actually just the etched acrylic.

scottmcphee · #18 10-17-2012, 10:56 PM

OK, I'll bite. How did you get the rectangular hole in the speedo for the deluxe version showing the green box with 'cruise control'?? (I'm too lazy to go out and have a look to see what is there on a stock 87 D)

Jeremy5848 · #19 10-18-2012, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottmcphee

OK, I'll bite. How did you get the rectangular hole in the speedo for the deluxe version showing the green box with 'cruise control'?? (I'm too lazy to go out and have a look to see what is there on a stock 87 D)

Gotcha! The "deluxe" version uses a speedo from a car with ASR. The rectangular window holds a little display unit that has a triangle with an exclamation mark in it -- you probably have seen them. I scraped the ASR symbol off and substituted "Cruise / Control" using the label tape as we have been discussing.

Getting an ASR speedo with the same ratio (in my case K=1100) as your car's stock speedo is the hard part. I was lucky and found a 1991 300E in the local junk yard. I didn't even realize what I had and was worrying about how to cut that hole in my speedo without damaging anything. An offline discussion with gsxr pointed out that I had gotten lucky. I substituted the ASR speedo for mine after resetting the odometer.

Your car should be the same (K=1100), I would think (but don't know for sure). There should be a little paper label on your speedo or cluster somewhere (if it hasn't fallen off in 25 years) that will have a bunch of numbers and "K=something" on it. That tells you the speedo ratio based on the rear end gears in your car. Any speedo with the same K number will work in your car.

As a bonus, my car now can go 20 MPH faster (160 MPH speedo replaces stock 140 MPH unit).

Modifying the ASR display and hooking up the wiring is trivial if you can find a speedometer that already has that window and the little display. Without that I would recommend the simple LED version. OTOH, getting an ASR speedo may actually not be that hard; since it is not really practical to retrofit ASR there won't be much of a market for any of the parts.

Jeremy

JamesDean · #20 10-18-2012, 08:15 AM

Ah! I was wondering how you did that. I'd always thought that was some type of display and you'd programmed in an extra symbol!

Is it just an exclamation point and light?

Jeremy5848 · #21 10-18-2012, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesDean

Ah! I was wondering how you did that. I'd always thought that was some type of display and you'd programmed in an extra symbol!

Is it just an exclamation point and light?

The ASR display consists of an incandescent bulb with a circuit to automatically dim it when the headlights are on, plus a screen that, when illuminated from the rear by the bulb, displays a warning triangle with exclamation point in it. Something like the trunk warning triangle, I guess. (In the picture, the bulb has been removed so that I could illuminate the screen with a flashlight.)

The speedometer is special because of the rectangular hole and because of a special clip in the plastic back that supports the connector for the ASR display. The speedometer movement itself is unchanged from what a non-ASR car would have. Even the mounting points for the display are present in all 124 speedometers that I have seen. The rectangular hole is probably the real stumbling point.

What I'd really like is a digital display that would show the speed at which the cruise control was set. Possible but not trivial.

Jeremy

pwogaman · #22 01-20-2013, 04:42 AM

There are also warning triangle speedometers in the 1990-1993 4Matics. The sedan rearend ratio is 3.07:1 and the wagon rearend ration is 3.29:1. The 3.29:1 ratio in the W124s is unique to the 4Matic wagon by the way.