what a pain in the butt........
 

So I take the '99 turbodiesel in for emmisions testing and the shop tells me since they can't read the odometer they can't test it. Every once in a while the odometer comes back to life - does anyone have a trick to get the numbers to show up even for a brief period of time?

Get the odometer display screen and replace. Common on ebay.

I don't see how being able to read an odometer has anything to do with emissions. Try another shop if you need it smogged before you fix the odometer.