W201 Odometer/trip mileage
 

Howdy,

I was driving my 190D 2.2 today (1984) and looked down and noticed that the trip odo/odometer weren't clicking off miles. This must have just happened as I gassed up about 1/2 tank ago and now only show 90 miles on it.

The odometer looks like it is not mounted in the speedometer straight anymore. It looks like something has busted and allowed the right hand side to move into the dash.

Anything I should know before I dive in? Is this a home repair or do I need to buy new/send to overseas speedometer?

Thanks,

Sholin

I repaired the 190’s by doing the following:

-Remove the cluster
-Remove the speedometer section from the cluster
-Locate the white gear sets on the side of the odometer
-push the white round gear inwards so that it contacts the “spiral” or worm shaft once again
-Clean and then slightly rough-up the end of the shaft that the round is attached to carefully
-Use epoxy or JBWeld and put a dab on both the shaft and the outwards end of the round gear being extremely careful not to get any on the gear(s) surfaces
-Optional- add a small amount of lube to the gear surfaces and to the trip odometer reset mechanism and pivots.
-Reassemble

Tips:

-Detach the speedo cable from the trans to get the instrument housing to extend far eough out from the dash to disconnect the speedo cable on the back.

-Carefully note where each of the electrical connnectors go on the back of the cluster if each wire doesn't still have its original connector number. Doing this in the saves a ton of work later.

Haasman

Thanks very much guys. I observed it today "trying" to turn over the mileage, so I didn't break a speedo cable.

I'll dig in this weekend. I'll probably have some more questions then.

Sholin

I had that same 190 odometer problem recently, and stumbled on this old thread. Like haasman said, I pushed the white 16-tooth pinion gear inward to engage properly again with the worm drive. Except my gear wasn't slipping on the metal shaft. The entire 3-inch shaft slid back to where it belongs, with the far end going back into an alignment hole that straightened the odometer numbers again. The worm drive rotation direction is such that it pulls the shaft outward if the worm-to-pinion contact gets sticky. Worrisome that the shaft needs to drive a pot-metal gear at the units-end of the odometer numbers. Hope there's enough friction remaining in this press-fit to keep the numbers turning for several more years. The instrument cluster is a real pain to pull and reinstall, with all those connections behind it.

A drop of epoxy on the end of a needle will help to keep the gear in place.

Numbers on the tumblers must all be in the right place, or the odometer wont work right Looks like the pot gears have come off the shaft .

Look in the forum diy on this page at the top Tech Info