Odometer died

[knutrok]

My 1991 318i odometer has recently died.  My longtime mechanic tells me that he would need to replace the entire speedometer/tach unit.

Everything else still works, can anyone suggest a place or person that can fix the odometer alone?

[twinpop171]

http://www.bavauto.com

Click on Fast Times link at bottom of home page.
Go to winter 2005 issue.
There is a DIY in there. I couldn't post a link because it is in pdf format.
I've done the repair myself and it's not very hard to do.  The hard part is forking out $50 for two small plastic gears.  There are three gears in there.  The small 12 tooth one is probably broken and the next one to it is probably soft and deteriorating too.  I did the repair on a non airbag car and did not need to remove the steering wheel to get the guage cluster out.  Maybe someone here can let you know about an airbag wheel.
Good luck.
Dan

[ak96ss]

Welcome to the club! Here I am answering your post after pointing you towards the forum in the first place...  

If it's just the odometer that died, you probably lost a gear in the odometer. These can be replaced without having to replace the whole instrument cluster, with a little technical skill. There are a few other things that it could be, but more than likely it is just the gear. BMW used a urethane gear on the odometer, combined with a petroleum-based lubricant that causes the gear to degrade over time.

The Bavauto write-up is pretty good. There are also these:

Write-up for replacing the gear: http://www.odometergears.com/VDO_MotoMeter_Gear_Replacement.htm  (also sells the replacement gears)

Another write-up from E30Tech: http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51635

The cluster comes out from the front - disconnect the battery, remove the airbag, remove the steering wheel, remove a couple of trim pieces, and there are four screws that hold the cluster in. I know there are folks that have managed to somehow remove the cluster without removing the steering wheel, but I have never been able to do that. There just isn't room.

Key point: do NOT turn on the ignition or reconnect the battery while the steering wheel/air bag are disconnected. The SRS/air bag system will set an alarm, the SRS light will come on, and I haven't found a dealer yet that can turn it back off - the baud rate for the E30 SRS computer is too low for the equipment the dealers have now (at least that is what I have been told).

I know there are shops that do it for exorbitant sums of money, but I wouldn't hesitate to give it a shot myself if you are at all handy. If you're really hesitant about doing it, we can talk - I can probably fit some time in over the next few weeks to do the repair for you, but we'll have to figure out a good time do that, particularly if you don't want to pull the cluster out yourself.

[twright]

I don't want to move this post from its intended value, but I just wanted to tell everyone that I have found an independent shop that was able to clear my SRS light.  ACG, in Indianapolis was able to do it.  It took them 2 hours to do it, but the next one will go much faster.  They only charged me $79.

I'm sure they would be happy to do more.

[roundel318]

I had been working on the electrical and forgot to connect the dummy light panel that has the SRS light once when I started up the airbag computer, luckily my mechanic is nice and has a bit of experience when it comes to this.
The tool he had made it a 5 minute job to clear it, it too plugged onto the diag port under the hood, just a different tool.
One worth it's weight in gold as they could be asking $79 every time they do that