I just repaired my odometer with the part from Odometer Gears
I just repaired my odometer with the part from Odometer Gears. Jeff is a great guy, enormously helpful.
Here's the thing. If the gear that's bad is the one at the END of the shaft, you DON'T need to pull the face off the speedometer to get it out, so you DON'T need to pull the speedo needle off. But if the gear that's bad is the one that's NOT on the end of the shaft, you DO need to pull the face of the speeedometer to replace it, which means you DO need to pull the needle off. I just did this and wrote it up for next month's Roundel. I'll paste it here.
The Hack Mechanic / May 2014
By Rob Siegel
Clocking the Miles
During my drive last Memorial Day down to The Vintage in Winston-Salem, the odometer in my ’73 3.0CSi ceased ticking up the miles. In the past, when I’ve had odometer issues, I’ve cheerfully sent the speedo off to North Hollywood Speedometer. They’re fast and do great work. Almost too good; they clean instruments so well, the adjacent gauges look old. For that and skinflint reasons, I decided to tackle this one myself. I’d met Odometer Gears’ Jeff Caplan at Oktoberfest, and he’d assured me that any hack mechanic can repair an odometer. (“And,” he claimed, “whether you pay North Hollywood or do it yourself, you’re using our gears.”) I e-mailed Jeff for a price quote and began to remove the speedometer.
I have a wood-grained instrument cluster from a wrecked 2800CS I parted out 25 years ago sitting on my desk. I assumed that I’d removed said cluster as whole, as you’d do in a 2002; undo the speedo cable, loosen two knurled nuts, remove the electrical connections, and slide it toward the steering wheel. But I found that, on an E9, it’s much more difficult. You need to either remove the individual gauges one at a time from behind by reaching up under the dash, or unbolt the “grab rail” from the front of the dashboard (horrible in an air-conditioned car), or remove the cowl (very difficult unless the windshield is out, which is probably how I did it in the parts car). I used the first method. What a pain. While I was in the neighborhood, I also pulled the clock, which had read “12:15” for 28 years.
To fix the odometer, you start by gently prying off the chrome bezel that holds on the glass cover. You can then pull off the metal back and expose the inner workings. There’s a squarish case enclosing the cogged wheels. Reading online, I learned that there are two common odometer failure modes – either the gear on the outside of the case cracks, or the one inside the case spins freely on the shaft. Mine was experiencing failure #2. For this, there is a well-documented kluge – you push the shaft out using a rod or nail of a similar diameter (which also holds the rest of the gears in place), then slightly enlarge the end of the shaft with Vice Grips or a small punch or a dab of Viagra. You then slide the shaft back through, and press it into the gear that was formerly loose. If it’s tight, you’ve potentially fixed it without having to disassemble the case. I did this, and tested it with a speedometer cable and a drill. It worked fine, I buttoned it up, e-mailed Jeff “never mind,” put the bezel back on… and then noticed that the thousands dial was between two digits. Damn! I pulled it apart, pushed the shaft back out, corrected the number, reassembled it, and the odometer no longer worked. I e-mailed Jeff again with my tail between my legs. He castigated me for being such a hack, saying that the “deform the shaft” method would’ve likely failed in short order anyway. The gear cost $25, and came with all the phone or Skype support I needed. Let’s do it. Considering the challenge in pulling the gauges out, I’d hate to have to do this repair twice.
But as I looked at the speedometer, I realized I’d need to pull the needle and face off to get the gear out. This gave me major heebie jeebies, but Jeff explained that there are three tricks to it. First, you run the unit with a drill and record what the speedo is reading at the drill’s maximum RPM. Second, before pulling the needle, you gently lift it over the pin stop, lay the unit flat on a table, see where the resting point is, and mark it on the edge with tape. Third, Jeff cautioned against using the needle-removing methods I read about online (popping it off by hand or with a needle removal tool or a fork). He instead recommended undoing the back of the case to expose a cylinder that the needle’s shaft is connected to, then grabbing the center of needle while rotating the cylinder back and forth. He warned that, on my E9’s “silver dollar” speedo, the little chrome center piece (more like dime-sized, actually) would pop off and would need to be re-glued during assembly.
All went as described. With the needle off, the face can be unscrewed, which allows you to replace the errant gear. Hold the numbered cogs in place, draw out the shaft, remove the old gear, insert the new one, press the shaft back in, and verify that the odometer reads its pre-repair value (a consequence of performing this procedure is that I will never believe low mileage based solely on odometer reading without accompanying provenance). Then, gently press the needle back on at its resting position, lift it over the pin stop, hook up the drill, and verify the speedo registers its pre-disassembly speed. Perfect.
All that remained was to glue the little chrome center piece back on. And that’s when perfect turned to damnit! A glob of superglue dripped onto the black face of the gauge. I immediately wiped it off, but it stained. Careful scrubbing, first with soap, then with Ooops, then very lightly with the corner of a soft Scotch Brite pad, made the discoloration virtually undetectable. But the mishap inadvertently provided a good caution sign: Yes you can do this odometer repair yourself, but if you would be heartbroken by a cosmetic snafu, perhaps you should call the pros.
And the clock? Fixed with a Pelican Parts article and two capacitors from my local Radio Shack. With the odometer and clock repaired, time and distance tick away. And, really, that’s too bad. I didn’t realize how much I preferred it when time stood still in my E9.
