Removing the Cluster
 

'01 E320 only 19k miles; in the same window as the tachometer is the time and the position of the transmission (Drive, Park, Reverse etc), well the lower half of the time and one row (at the top of the letter, not column) of the transmission selection is out. However, this outage isn't consistant, once in a while it will just come back on, sometime it takes hitting a bump. Is there a fix without replacing the the entire componet?

Common problem, only fix is to replace the cluster.

I agree, if just a few pixels, like the top or bottom of an individual letter or number is out, then it's time for a new cluster. If a whole area of the display is just dim, then it's one of the backlight bulbs, there are 3 of them for the display, right, left and center.
Gilly

Damn. Thanks for helping.