The correct tool, called a "pulling hook", part #140-589-02-33-00 is only $11.20 for a pair of them. Spend the "$$$" and I'm sure you'll get your money's worth out of them. On your '86 300E (same as mine) only use the hooks to pull on the upper half of the vertical sides of the instrument cluster, where the plastic is reinforced. (I have some pictures I can post if someone can tell me how to reduce a 1.2 Mb jpeg to 66.5 Kb or less.) Also, be very sure to either unscrew the speedo cable from the trans or pull up the driver's side floormat and unclip the speedo cable from the firewall (the second method works fine for me). Gently pull some slack up through the firewall grommet. When you pull out the cluster far enough to get your hand inside, unscrew the cable. All the wire connectors can only go on one way and the wired lights on the RH back side have numbers corresponding with numbers stamped on the back of the cluster. No. 2 will be missing (at least it is on mine). Don't forget to hook the vacuum hose back up.

HTH

Gary