Odometer/Trip Odometer fix

[jometz]

Hi all, the odometer and trip odometer on my '76 are inop.  Speedometer works fine so cable is good.  Anyone have recommendation on how these can be fixed?  Not a big deal but I like everything to work.  Thanks for any help.

Jack

[Roland]

As one of many posts on this subject, try:  https://www.bmw2002faq.com/articles.html/technical-articles/body-and-interior/odometer-repair-r42/

[jometz]

Thanks, I'll give this a try.  

[PaulTWinterton]

I had some success in fixing the odometer.  The gear on the end of the shaft can come loose.  Here is a couple of tricks to fix it, if that`s your problem.  Also check the screws that hold the number assembly together.  Maybe something else has worked its way loose and only needs tightening.

 

https://www.bmw2002faq.com/forums/topic/183212-more-on-speedoodometer-repair/

 

[Mike Self]

If that odometer gear is broken or you're unsuccessful super gluing it to its shaft, drop the folks at Odometergears.com an e-mail and describe the problem.  They make excellent quality replacement gears, and will provide instructions on installation along with the gears.

 

cheers

mike

[deschodt]

I did the above fixes and they worked for a while. Them I'd have to do it again. The good part is you get really good at it, cluster out in 2 minutes, apart in 3 more, back in the car in 2 minutes more. no way you can do that on a 911, say ! In the end, I paid the piper and had Hartmut at Palo alto speedo redo the ODO at the same time I had him recalibrate my fuel gauge. 2x1. Otherwise I'd have played with the gears as Mike indicated above, it's not all that hard but I was in for a penny, in for a pound. Very happy to have to all working again. Now the focus in on my fugly cracked dash.

['76mintgrün'02]

My repair was temporary also.  It lasted for 30k miles and then stopped working.  I pulled it out a year or so ago and pushed the shaft back out a bit, hoping it would engage the gear and stay put, but it didn't last long at all.  Yesterday, I pulled it out again and pushed the shaft all the way out, so I could make the dings deeper and hopefully get a better grip on the plastic gear.

 

On mine, the problem has to do with the shaft sliding over and taking the brass gear with it, so it no longer engages the worm gear.  This is a photo I took the first time I took it apart.

 

 

The shaft still grips/spins the plastic gear fine, so I made a little tiny brass spacer to go behind the gear so it can't slide back over.  

 

 

The spacer I used is .040" thick, with a .120" ID.  (It sort of seems like they pressed the gear on backwards).  

 

 

I noticed some wear where the worm gear passes through, which was contributing to the misalignment problem.  That part has a slotted mounting hole to adjust the engagement, so I greased it up and slid it over to take up the slack.  It is tempting to drill it out and make a little tiny bronze bushing, but I'd need a little tiny gear puller....

 

 

It's back together right now and the alignment seems spot on, so it is tempting to call it good, as is.... 

 

 

I used some Abu Garcia silicone grease.  It's just a little thinner than the Sil-Glyde I  used last time.

 

I used a small paint brush to dust off the gauges and then cleaned both sides of the glass.  A couple years ago, I used compressed air to blow the dust off of the dash and it blew dust into the gauges.  I'm glad that's finally cleaned up.

 

It'll be nice to see the odometer spinning again.  I spun it with a drill/bamboo skewer to confirm that it's working as it should.  (photo from the first time I had it apart)

 

 

It's funny how long I put of such a fun repair.

 

Tom

[jimk]

If synthetic based grease is used, it won't dry like petroleum based grease does and hopefully better longevity of the works.

['76mintgrün'02]

That's what I am hoping.  The Abu grease is juicier than SilGlyde, so hopefully it wicks in as it spins.  The shaft in the worn-out pivot spins really slowly.  I guess the skewed-gear puts side-pressure on the worm-gear and that must be trying to push the brass gear in, (since that's where mine kept going).

 

That 'pot metal' isn't very wear resistant.  You can see the eroded metal in the original grease (above) and again in the stuff I used.  The silly-grease is still soft after ten years.  Just a little discolored from the brass and muddy from the cruddy meddle.

 

 

Tom

 

 

['76mintgrün'02]

I noticed another gear alignment problem that explains why the reset knob didn't always work on the first try.  The shaft had slipped out of the non-brass gear and allowed the other end to slide out to the edge of the teeth.

 

 

The shaft has a groove that aligns with a little 'key' in the gear.  I put the gear in these viSe grips to crimp it a bit and learned that those gears are reallly soft.  It's neat how you can dial-a-crimp using the adjustment knob.

 

 

Pinching it didn't really seem to improve the grip on the shaft much, so I mixed up the tiniest batch of JB Weld ever and put a teeny bit of that in the joint.

 

 

Here's my bamboo gear pressing tool.

 

 

Here's the realigned gear set.

 

 

That took a little more dinking around than anticipated, but it's back in the car now.

 

Tom

[visionaut]

I’ve got a minor problem with mine, with just the dang trip odometer. I can’t easily reset it back to all zeros - to read 000.

 

It’ll spin when I turn the dial fine enough, but inside something related to the digits skips/slips at the end, so it doesn’t go to all zeros. It’s really a nit issue, and I’m lazy, so it’s just stayed like this for the last 20 years.

 

So I just turn it and  leave it at a random single digit setting like 003, 009 or 007 - close enough for tracking my fuel fill ups.

 

But I bet you odometer repair wiz’s would know what my fix would be… lol

 

Tom-too

 

 

[visionaut]

On 8/15/2022 at 7:31 AM, visionaut said:

I’ve got a minor problem with mine, with just the dang trip odometer. I can’t easily reset it back to all zeros - to read 000.

Crickets…? Yeah, not very understandable. So here’s a movie of this Odd Odo…  Lol

It gots a sloppy singles digit.  It only increments 1 for every digit-set recycle instead of 10.  But it’s only oddball on the rewind… It works fine in normal forward operation.
 

So wuts broke?

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by visionaut
.mov converted to .m4v

['76mintgrün'02]

1 minute ago, visionaut said:

So wuts broke?

 

Besides your video?  (didn't work for me)  Your description makes sense, but I don't have insights to offer.

 

I think you're going to need to look inside and see!  I'd look at mine and take a guess, but it is back in the car already.  It seems like most of these problems have to do with something spinning on a shaft when it is not supposed to be.  Please take photos to share when you dig into it.   

 

I am tempted to pull mine back out just far enough to put a splitter on the tach's spade connection and attach another switched wire to ground as a theft deterrent.  That seems like a clean way to keep it from getting spark if I park it someplace sketchy.

 

Tom 

[visionaut]

Vid format hopefully fixed.  (Thx Tom!)

 

Oh yeah, just when you'd think that if I keep spinning it, when it gets to up 009, and it'll then roll to 000 --- but NO...... it rolls over to 010 !!!  

 

Thus why I just leave it at whatever single digit it likes that time. Analog is cool like that.

 

Tom-too

[jimk]

2 hours ago, visionaut said:

Thus why I just leave it at whatever single digit it likes that time.

Do you get better fuel mileage that way?