Somewhere to send a gauge cluster to for rebuild?

[LavaSurfer]

I'm tired of trying to swap clusters in and out and sourcing parts here and there to get a working speedo. I'm now ready to pony up some money and find a place that has to tools and know how to test/rebuild/fix a gauge cluster.

However after some searching I've found nothing. Anyone know of a place?

[wodcutr]

It would be cheaper just to buy a good working one. You would be better off to pay good money for a known working cluster unless you have other wiring issues too. I happen to have one such cluster.

[slow e30]

buy a working used one an option? jesus

[LavaSurfer]

I have bought a "known good cluster", yet it still has things in it that doesn't work.

[reelizmpro]

There's North Hollywood speedometer, Programa, among other VDO/Motometer repair shops but they aren't cheap. What's your problem? Odometer gears aren't too bad. Intermittent speedo's can be tricky though. Have you check the speed sensor in the diff? wiring is all good?

[Jean]

OP - what year/model car, vdo or motometer? I have spare parts and depending on what the issue is might be able to help you. What exactly is wrong?

Problems usually are bad SI Boards, bad grounds, bad odometer gears, Cold solder joints at the C1/C2 connections on the main board... for example.

[LavaSurfer]

I have an 87 325e with a VDO cluster. It basically works 50% of the time when the car is cool. Once its gets warmed up it will stop working. It varies how long it actually works too.

I haven't checked the wiring yet. However it did the same thing when I first bought the car, and I have swapped out to an LSD diff so I would think I eliminated any problems with the speed sensor since I am still having the same problem as I did with the original diff/sensor.

The cluster I have now seems to have at least a semi working SI board. I need to try and reset it to see if that is possible. The inspection light is on. The temp gauge also doesn't work. Along with the MPG gauge as long as the speedo it dead (but I realize I need a working speedo for it to function).

[Jean]

Try and reset the board, check that the nut behind the temp gauge is on there. The SI board affects how the gauges in the cluster work, but not all of them. For example IIRC the fuel gauge is on it's own. You can also check the connection on the temp sensor on the engine, that's where your temp gauge is getting it's signal from.

So everything works when it's cool, but then stops working once it's warmed up? Fuel gauge, speedo/odometer work when it's cold?

If you have already check the diff sensor, and also tried another then problem most likely is in the cluster. Have you already pulled it to verify if the gears are broken? You can normally tell by just removing the front cover, you don't have to remove the actual odo/speedo unit.

[Japandrew73]

If you really want to have it working, send it to North Hollywood Speedometer. Hands down they do the best work money can buy. They did the gauges for the Movie "Herbie Fully Loaded" and they did gauges on a few famous restorations such as Ron Perry's Hartge and Paul Cains 3.8csi and 3002ttil. They can repair it to be fully functional and also do custom work to make it look exactly as you like. Here are some pictures of Paul Cain's turbo.


Hard to see on these boost gauges, but they all say twin turbo



You get the point, you kind of have to understand 3.0cs's and 2002's to understand the differences, but these are custom made faces and fully functional do the the work of North Hollywood Speedometer. I asked them for a quote a while ago just for getting the instrument cluster functional and they said roughly $600. When you think about it that's a good price to get the whole thing functional.