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...
I spent the afternoon going over the 560SEC, making small improvements and evaluating the car. The first order of business was to look at the original factory wheels that came with it. As was the norm back in 1987, there are five factory alloy wheels. They were in a really sorry state when I removed them from the boot of the car. They...
Back in early 2017 I fixed my broken odometer. The 300SE odometer repair was successful, but there were two things I needed to follow up on. The odometer was reading 10% low. 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...
My ‘new’ 300SE suffered from a common problem with Mercedes of that era, a non functional odometer. The mechanical odometer is driven by a small electric motor instead of a traditional speedometer cable and associated gears. This is because the speedometer is electric yet the odometer is mechanical. This combination was common in the late 80s and early 90s before cars...
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