Recently the odometer stopped working on my 1987 560SEL, just before the car hit 340,000km. This is a pretty common problem on the W126. I had to repair both my old 300SE and my 560SEC. The issue is the small gears that turn the odometer. They are made of a very soft plastic and after 30+ years, the teeth break off. This repair is...
Last night I finished the installation of the refurbished W124 instrument cluster. I’m really happy with it, and its really lifted the car. I ended up installing it as part of my failed attempt to change the centre vent. Even after changing the bulb, the vent illumination was not working. I realized that it must require the instrument cluster to be plugged in. ...
In this series I am refurbishing my W124 instrument cluster. In the first part, I removed the cluster and lubricated the speedo cable. For the second part, I repaired the W124 outside temperature display. Now I am focused on my instrument cluster which is afflicted with the dreaded white spot disease. While I was in the UK for work in January, I purchased a...
In this series I am refurbishing my W124 instrument cluster. In the last part, I removed the cluster and lubricated the speedo cable. For this part, I am repairing the W124 outside temperature display. The main problem with these displays is that when exposed to too much hot sun, the LCD panel ‘bleeds’. Over time, this makes it increasingly illegible, not to be mention...
Ever since I bought my W124, there have been a couple of things about my instrument cluster I was not very happy with. It had the dreaded ‘white spot’ disease. Not just on the instrument cluster surround, but the inside of the glass too. The outside temperature LCD was all cloudy and difficult to read. The speedometer needle jumped around at low speed. I...
Earlier in the week I had identified the lack of instrument cluster lighting was due to a crack in the instrument cluster circuit board. The crack was causing an intermittent broken circuit. I wasn’t able to find much on the internet about Citroen DS Instrument cluster repair. Looking at the board it looked like a very simple design. That gave me the confidence to...
Recently during a night drive I discovered my Citroen DS instrument cluster lighting had failed. In Sydney, where I live, this is a huge problem as the city is bristling with speed cameras. So many that I could lose my entire licence in about 10 minutes driving near my house doing only 10 km/h over the speed limit. I regularly drive...
The Radio upgrade on the Citroen DS is almost complete. It’s taken over a month (albeit only a few hours a week). Today I properly installed the speakers. The DS front speaker is a 3″x7″ size which is not very common. Der Franzose carry a drop in replacement, but it is an original paper style speaker and I wanted to go...
This evening I was able to make good progress on the DS. First, I was able to fix a few of the issues with the instrument cluster, where the illumination wasn’t working for the gauges and the light for the heated rear window wasn’t working. (The heated rear window doesn’t work, but at least the light does!) I also spent a bit...
The instrument cluster of my Citroen DS needed to be removed to fit the new Retrosound Model Two radio I had purchased for the car. While it was out, I had a few things I wanted to address: My temperature gauge was disconnected The silver circles around the gauges were peeling off There was minimal speedometer illumination, a problem in our world full...
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