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I ran some Google searches last year and came up with lots of mentions of this problem on VDO odometers dating back to 50s Mercedes with zinc gears. With modern plastic/nylon gears, the gear that drives the shaft that advances the counter wheels cracks or shrinks away from the shaft. Fixes suggested include sliding it aside and crimping the shaft with vise grips where it was spinning, or supergluing it, and there's even a guy that sells new gears he casts himself in some resin, though he doesn't mention Saab as one he makes. VDO no longer sells them, is the word. Speedo shops do this repair, for bucks.
My preference and the one I'm going to try on mine is 3M DP-420 epoxy (buy thru 3M distributor, need a trigger-handle dispenser as well as a cartridge; don't get the mixing tips, stir the two parts together with a toothpick). It bonds incredibly tight to steel, we used it on a newspaper press to glue the spring steel ink doctor blade down to the steel block it flexes off. 3M rules! Need only a tiny dab, don't get any where it shouldn't go, or wipe it off real quick.
My question: Why the slipping? Is the force so great that it puts a lot of strain there? Maybe after the gluing, lubing the entire group of odometer wheels with something light like spray silicone would be a good idea, but don't overdo it and don't rub them until the solvent evaporates in case it softens the number paint.
There are descriptions of this repair, with non-pertinent stuff about Porsche or Mercedes gauges, at clarks-garage.com/shop_manual/elect-09.htm, at drivewerks.com/tech/mult_gauge_repair.htm, at instrument.mbzarticles.org/odo (and also ditto/odo2, and ditto/odogears/),at klaindustries.net/gearinstr/gear-instr.htm, and the guy that makes new gears is at odometergears.com. Also lots of anecdotal stuff by owners on other bulletin boards.
If you do opt to do your own you can probably pull the speedo right out of the cluster and reassemble the car enough to keep driving it while you take your sweet time on this pain in the neck of a job.
89 900T
posted by 64.222.211...
, Sun, 5 Dec 2004 23:33:28
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