Rolling odometer forward - worth bothering?
 

I managed to break one of my prisms on my cluster trying to brighten up the dashlights. Not too bright of me I guess... :rolleyes: Anyway, so I picked up a nice "new" cluster. Looks great and I'll be more careful this time.

I could plug in my old speedo/odometer cluster, but the trip odometer slips on my "old" one, so I'll probably just replace the entire cluster. If I do that the master odometer will read 182k rather than my honest 201k. I've certainly seen the Diesel Giant odometer repair page. Would I be into disassembling the odometer gears if I want to roll this 182k -> 201k ? Not sure if I want to risk it, but I would prefer a "real" record of the mileage. Worth it?

Meanwhile... my 300D, "Frances," is in the shop getting new engine seals, a rear axle, new shocks and all kinds of good $tuff. :D

-Chuck

I'd try the old trick used to reverse the odo, cut a cable from a junk car and hook it to something that spins

I've done it twice (rolling forward) in order to have accurate mileage. Seems like I just took a few pieces off the back of the odometer and then applied it to a drill with a little gear on it.

First time went fast and the last time took like 20 minutes, but I now have accurate mileage

dd

Use the electric drill method. I took mine apart and unless you have 4 to 6 hands it is a bastard to get back together. Took me a couple of hours of trial and error to get all the numbers to line up. Not a fun afternoon.

Then write the mileage down somewhere and keeo it in the car. It's not worth messing with and you could break this one too1 Besides, if your was slipping, how do you know the mileage is correct?:confused:

Thanks for all the great replies.

So the "slipping" is only with the trip odometer, not the main one. So this new cluster would likely save me from fixing the trip odometer as well. Will definitely try the drill method for "roll forward" rather than micro-gear dissemble... for someone far sighted, it ain't fun.

Funny y'all mention the drill method, as it reminds me of a story. Uh oh.... Yep, I was 17 years old and delivered pizza for a summer job My folks went out of town for a couple of days, and my dad didn't want me to drive the Subaru for delivery. I drove it anyway, because it got better mpg than the pickup. After that I DID figure out the drill rollback method for that car, but burned out his drill in the process. He never knew about the rollback, but wondered by his drill no longer worked! :rolleyes:

-Chuck

An update...
 

OK, so the drill works. It takes a small square bit, and you have to run it in reverse to roll it forward. High speed on my drill creates about an 80 MPH experience for the speedo part of the cluster. Of course at that rate it would take quite a while to roll forward 20k miles. :eek:

I did find however, that I can gently roll the single mile digit forward.... it won't roll back, but it will roll forward, so for my purposes that's fine. The rate is more like about 250 miles in 1 minute with a quick flickety flick. I haven't figured out how that comes out in MPG, but a lot faster than my 300D will ever see on the road. :D

Thanks again,

Chuck

Follow-up
 

The good: Got the odometer rolled forward just right. I used a drill that I rigged to "roll" the actual number wheel. Worked really well.

The not-so-good: The speedo goes to 120 MPH, but I'm guessing it is for a different transmission/gear ratio as it reads about 5 MPH too high on my 300D with 14 inch tires. I've watched the odometer which seems to roll about 11 1/10 for every mile.

So can I calibrate the speedo or, should I get bigger tires??? I hate to start over now that it is finally WORKING! :rolleyes:

Thanks!

Chuck

I think the speedo can be calibrated with a different drive gear inside the transmission......