The first step is to remove the cluster and have a look.  You can’t order the gears until you check what you have, as the various combinations of instrument cluster use gears with different numbers of teeth.   The factory tool to remove the cluster is not necessary.   The easiest way to get the cluster out is to remove the speaker and push it out from behind.

Once removed, the instrument cluster can be unplugged (there are a lot of plugs) and brought to a workbench.  The first thing that must be removed is the exterior temperature display.   It is held onto the bottom of the instrument cluster with two screws and simply slides out.   These two screws also hold in the speedometer.

Next, there are four more screws to remove the speedometer housing.    They are the gold ones with the hexagonal heads on the edges.

Once those screws are removed, the entire assembly for the speedometer just lifts out, once the warning light that clips on is removed.    At the same time, the two smaller inner bulbs for the indicators, and larger outer bulbs for the illumination should be removed.

It is not possible to repair the odometer while the speedometer is still in its plastic housing.   The four inner screws must also be removed.   On my cluster they were the silver phillips head screws, but I’ve also seen gold flathead screws on other clusters.

The speedometer unit lifts out, and care should be taken to not lose the four rubber spacers that go on the plastic feet that stick through the circuit board.   There are also plastic baffles for the light bulbs that slide out.

With the cluster removed, you can see the original vivid orange the speedometer needle was, as well as the the max speed markings and 50/60 hatching.  These should all match, so I elected not to repaint my speedometer needles, as I do not have a steady enough hand to repaint the sections on the speedometer face.   They look terrible when they don’t match, as well as looking terrible when painted red, not the factory orange.

The odometer gears are accessed to the right of the speedo.   There is a cover held on by two tiny philips head screws.   In the picture above, the cover has already been removed (top right) and the tiny screws are on the table.  The cover is a bit of a pain to get off, due to the black box.

With the cover off, it is easy to see the three gears that wear.   The small one, from the drive motor on the right, the top one, and the next one.  There are also two more gears that don’t seem to wear and do not need to be replaced.

The main thing to do here is to remove the two larger gears and count the teeth on the inner gear for each.  The outer teeth seem to always be 48, but the inner teeth vary.   I guess I’m going to need reading glasses soon, as I couldn’t count the inner teeth without the magnifying glass app on my phone.   When I last did this a few years ago, I didn’t need any assistance!

The picture below shows one of my gears, including the missing teeth.

The smaller gear always seems to have 12 teeth, so does not need to be counted.   There also seems to always be a 12/48 gear.   However, for my 560SEL with a 260KM/h speedometer and a 2.47 rear end, I needed a 14/48 gear.   My old 300SE needed a 13/48 and my 560SEC with an MPH speedometer needed an 18/48.   I purchased my gears from Garagistic.

By the time the gears arrived, plus I had a bit of work travel, it had been a few months since I removed the cluster.   It is a pretty simple matter to remove the two larger gears, but the original small gear is on a brass bushing, which is no longer needed.  The easiest way to remove it is to break it with a set of cutting pliers.

Once that is off, the new small gear is just press fit on.  The two larger gears are much easier to put in.   At this point, I made a mistake.  I assumed that the white gear was the replacement for the light coloured gear, and the blue gear was a replacement for the black one.   I put everything together and tested in the car.   It didn’t work properly.   I then removed it all again, and looking at the photos of when I did my 300SE, I realized I had them backwards, and it was binding.   The blue one should have been the top one.

I also used a small amount of rubber grease, as I found I could hear the gears on my 300SE with no lubrication.   As can be seen from one of the pictures up above, the original gears were lightly lubricated.

At this point, I also thought I would try replacing my broken clock with a different one.  I have a few spare W126 instrument clusters, so I removed the clock/tacho from the one that was in the best visual condition and swapped it over.

This was a pretty simple thing to do, but proved futile, as the replacement clock didn’t work either.   I put my old one back, as it was in much better visual condition than the other two spares.   Removing and the bulbs for the illumination a couple of times caused them to fail, so I ended up replacing both of them.  I keep bulbs like this on hand so it was easy to do.

In doing this testing, I didn’t push the cluster back in properly which made it easy to take it in and out until I was happy with everything. Once I was, I pushed the cluster back in place and replaced the speaker.

The final test was to check the accuracy of the odometer with my GPS.  On a 2.8km course, the trip odometer recorded 2.8km, so I was happy with the result.    I’m glad my 560SEL odometer repair is finally done, as I don’t like to drive cars without a working odometer.

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The tyres are quite cold, but in terms of the wheels, two of them are in reasonably good condition, two are in below average condition and one is in poor condition.   Unfortunately they did not come with the lug bolts, so I will need to purchase a set.  I have a spare set of center caps that are in average condition, but probably better than two of the caps.  Ideally I would go with 16″ wheels, as I think they work better on the W126.   However, most of the options that look good are expensive.   If I was going to spend money, I would rather buy a set of 15″ Fuchs alloys for the 450SLC and put those wheels on the SEC.

Next was to look at the Odometer.  I know it was working about two years ago from a roadworthy report, and I have done the job before on my 300SE.   A working odometer is important because it helps ensure that the car is serviced properly.   There were also some gaudy chrome plastic instrument surrounds that I was keen to remove.

Like my 300SE, the outside temperature display is not working.   Being a UK car, this has the 170MPH speedometer.   I was lucky that I had some spare odometer gears on hand.   This was because I had purchased the wrong ones for the 300SE.   I was even luckier that the two broken gears were the ones I had spares for.   Ideally I would have replaced the other soft one, but I didn’t have a spare and it wasn’t missing any teeth.   We’ll see how long it works.    As can be seen in the picture, the one that breaks most frequently is the small one on the right, and the black one it engages with.

A quick test showed the odometer was working correctly and the instrument cluster is looking much better back to factory.   There is some evidence where those faux chrome rings scratched the faces, but it’s very small.   The rest of the instruments seem to be working correctly.   I also noticed upgraded speakers in the front when I was pushing the cluster out during the install.

Next was to clean the interior of the car and try and start conditioning the leather.   There are still some areas where the interior can be further cleaned, but overall it is looking much better.   It was clear that the leather has not been fed for years, if at all as it was very dry and is cracking in places.   It does feel softer after a clean and condition.  I also mounted the rear number plate properly instead of with cable ties.

On the way back from Bathurst, I had seen the car give off a puff of white smoke occasionally.   My working theory is vacuum modulator.   However, today it wasn’t doing it at all and the vacuum modulator is of the new type.   I need to do more research as I understand this car should have a black modulator, not a red one.

I do have a spare black one in my part stash, but until I can confirm that the car is still making this smoke, the modulator is to blame, and the black one is the right one, I will not be changing it over.

The post 560SEC Improvements appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

1. The odometer was reading 10% low.
2. I could hear the gears, especially in cold weather.

In addition, some time after I repaired the odometer, one of the bulbs that illuminates the instrument cluster at night failed.   The fix for all these things required the removal of the instrument cluster.  The procedure to remove the cluster and the speedometer is covered in my previous article.

The low reading was attributed to having the wrong gear.   There are a few different gears based on the different W126 odometer units.    The standard gears for a KM/H cluster are both 12/48.  (12 notches on the inner gear and 48 on the outer).   On closer inspection, one of my gears was 13/48.

The 13/48 gear is the green one.     It was a simple matter to replace the inner gear that I installed back in 2017 with the green one.    The replacement gears are made of a much harder material than the original VDO gears.  This means they should be much more durable.   The downside is increased noise.   My hypothesis is that I can lubricate the plastic gears to reduce this noise.

I used a little rubber grease on the gears.  I’ll have to see how well greasing the gears reduces the noise.    While I had the speedometer out, I was able to change the bulb, which are contained in housings beside the speedometer.

Over time, the markings on these speedometer units fade.   With the speedometer disassembled like this, the original colour can be seen in markings between 50 and 60.   The needle is also supposed to be this colour.    Some people choose to repaint the needle while the speedometer is exposed.   Since all the markings are faded, I chose to leave it as is to keep them consistent.

I have not yet checked the accuracy of the odometer, but it is working and I can’t hear it so far.  I also have proper illumination when the headlights are on.

The post 300SE Odometer Repair Update appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The most common point of failure is a set of small gears that connect the electric motor to the odometer.   They are made from a very soft plastic to ensure noise is not transmitted to the cabin.   Over time, they loose teeth which stops them from working.     Replacement of the gears is a fairly simple procedure.   There are a few different companies who can supply the replacement gears – I got mine from Garagistic.

Removal of the instrument cluster

The W126 instrument cluster is simple to remove.   The cluster is only friction fit in the dash, and unlike some models the steering wheel does not need to be removed.   The official procedure calls for two special hooks to drag out the cluster.  Some people have made their own copies of these hooks. I found it easier to remove the drivers side speaker and simply push it out from behind.    There are many different connections to the cluster, and the trickiest part is removing the ones with the least slack first.  I found this was the vacuum line for the economy gauge.  That line is friction fit into its rubber tube.

Dismantling the instrument cluster

The speedometer is removed from the rear.    The outside temperature gauge is removed first.    There are after market replacement units available although I do not know their quality.   They are available in Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Next the plastic housing is removed.   Care needs to be taken with the speedometer face and needle!   This allows access to the rear of the speedometer.    It appears that the circuit board can be removed from the speedometer, but it doesn’t easily.   Its not really necessary, as once the back cover is off, the odometer gears can bs seen on one side and their cover removed.     From here the Garagistic instructions are useful, even if they are for a BMW.

Replacing the gears

The gears are easy to remove, and my small gear was pretty much disintegrated.   The only slightly fiddly job is that there is a metal bushing that also needs to be removed as the new gears do not need it.  The first photo shows two of the three gears removed and the second shows the new gears installed.

Some people recommend some grease to ensure the gears are silent.   I didn’t have any on hand, so I’ll need to see if they are annoying and I need to remove the cluster and add some.   There was also a 4th tiny gear in the pack I didn’t seem to need.   I am not sure if this is for another model, or I missed it.   Re-assembly is simple and only takes a few minutes.

UPDATE September 2018.   The repair above worked.  However, one of the gears was the wrong ratio, causing the odometer to run low.  I also chose to lubricate the gears to try and reduce noise.   For more details click here.  I also fixed the Odometer in my 560SEC using the same procedure.

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