How do you remove the left-side vent? Do you mind posting pics?

Hi George
Can you elaborate on how to remove speedometer cable at the tranny

I know this is an old thread, but I finally found the patience and time to reattempt the removal of the 190D's instrument cluster (with success this time!).

1) The approach of removing the left side vent didn't work for me. Through the side vent, I could just barely fit my arm in and touch the speedometer cable. But, the opening is so small that it wouldn't allow me to tighten my muscles to grab the cable connector. I'm not a giant person or anything - the opening is just really tiny.

If you want to try this anyway, to remove the vent, put some cloth around the tip of some needle-nose pliers, grab the center horizontal divider in the vent, and pull straight out. It's just a friction fit. Then pry up the 4 clips holding the plastic trim in place (2 at the bottom of the vent opening, 2 at the top). Carefully pull the plastic trim out a little bit, disconnect the switch, and then remove it the rest of the way. Reassemble it all before you put the cluster back in. If your arm fits (or if you can recruit a small child or recent famine victim to help out) then this is probably the easiest method.

2) What worked for me was to go under the car and remove the two plastic retaining clips that fasten the speedometer cable on its way from the transmission to the cluster - one was directly under the transmission and one was part way up the side. You don't need to actually disconnect the end of the cable from the transmission. Removing the retainer clips gives just enough excess cable to allow the cluster to be pulled out so that you can reach the connector on the back of the speedometer. From the engine compartment, you may need to push some of this new excess cable into the passenger compartment; a rubber grommet thing keeps the cable from feeding through easily.

There's enough spare cable to allow you to loosen the connector, and more importantly, put it back on when you're done, without bruising and mangling your arms.

Don't forget to reconnect the retainer clips when you're done.

I cleaned the bulbs, got rid of the dust, and cleaned all of the electrical connectors. It looks like new now!