I ordered in the proper trim removal hooks ($14/pair) and decided I'll pull the instrument cluster today.
Made a note of all the connectors as I pulled them out. One of the plugs (the big black 7 pin plug in the center) just came apart when I pulled on it. I took a high-res photo of it so I can remember the pin layout.
After a bit of disassembly and inspection it was immediately clear what had happened. The teeth on the E2 gear had stripped.
And the broken teeth can actually be seen stuck in the E1 drive gear.
I had a look on odometergears.com and they say that the original gears are amber? Mine are black. Has someone been in here already? If these black gears are supposedly the newer and updated gears, why did they break? The E2 gear looks like its covered in what was once some kind of grease. Its soft and rubbery unlike the other gears. The E2 gear is 48 x 12 and the E3 gear is 48 x 16.I'll call Mercedes and see how much they want for one of these gears. Its probably a good time to convert to metric units as well.
so did u get yors fixed, mine broke again but the gears are ok
ReplyDelete@vdubpower, Yes I did. I ordered the kit from odometergears.com. I've put on 2000 miles since then and its all going good. I used a lot of lithium grease on the gears but they still make an annoying ticking sound. I didn't want to use a heavier bearing grease because the other gears were still original and thus would not take well to the petroleum based grease.
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