odometer died at 77K (or not?)

[funcrew]

Man, I'm a shmuck with these cars. I bought an '88 325i sedan with 77K, confirmed by carfax, and the odometer worked fine for the 20 miles or so that I test drove the car. The gas gauge was non-op (mostly), but I figured I could just use the odometer for a while until I got around to fixing the cluster.

Now I know what you're thinking. E30, odometer? Riiiiiiight... The odo worked fine (I think) for the 250 miles home from Phoenix to Vegas, but just puked today, registering about one mile shown for 5 actual. The car will be apart for interior cleaning, so I'm not putting any miles on it anyway.

Anyway, I got some good guidance here on the gas gauge, http://r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=135431 (not that I would know a soldering iron from a wii controller). The odometer seems like a problem. I've heard on R3V that the expensive replacement gears don't always work for very long. REALOEM lists a new speedometer for $400+ and a gas gauge for $127.

Would I be better off trying to fix the cluster problems, or buying a good (hopefully) used complete cluster with everything working? Discuss.

[Jean]

Pull the cluster out and see if the gear(s) inside it are broken, they just get old with age and pretty much crumble..... a new set of gears is about $20 or so from a guy on ebay in spain so they aren't expensive and work just fine. They will probably outlast the car. If the gears are fine, it can be a bad connection on the sender at the rear diff.

Fuel gauge can be a bad fuel sender in the tank, as that's where it's reading from. Search and you'll find how to troubleshoot it.