W123 Odometer Repair Notes

[treiberg]

I followed the dieselgiant write-up to repair your W123 odometer (http://www.dieselgiant.com/repairyourodometer.htm), and things went pretty well, but here are some observations that might enhance your experience if you do this and haven't done it before:

1) Use a 14mm on the main fitting when taking off the oil pressure line with the 10mm wrench. Mine was rather tight and by offsetting the torque with that other wrench, less chance of doing any damage.

2) Mine was also the slipping pot metal gear. You will know because this gear should not slip and should only turn when the main gear on that shaft turns.

3) For me, it was not necessary to remove the speedo head set as the first step to repair the pot metal gear. Not sure why he did that step.

4) Getting the pressed collar off was more difficult on mine. Required locking it with some visa grips and pulling straight out pretty hard to create enough space to get a small screwdriver in there to pry it the rest of the way.

5) Used the 7/64" bit and it worked wonderfully when pulling the shaft. Doing it this way, I had no problems at all with number alignment. Just be careful when re-inserting the scored shaft, to follow the drill bit back out, and be gentle. His article led me to believe that this was the hard part of the job. I think it may only be hard of you somehow get the wheels out of alignment (I taped my number wheels so they wouldn't move.)

6) Big mistake for me was scoring the shaft too far from the end where you are supposed to. Too much scoring too far from end meant that shaft would not slide back in all the way, because it was catching on that gear. Had to get a small file, and some steel wool to smooth out the shaft again. Insertted shaft into a dremel to turn at high RPM while gripping scored area with steel wool to smoth out again. The tolerances are incredibly tight, so just light scoring right next to that gear on the end of the shaft.

Enjoy!!