W126 DIY clock repair

[owm]

Well, I finally got my clock working by changing out the two worn out electrolytic capacitors.

I used this guide as a reference:

http://boostnbenz.1b...asley/clock.htm

Important! Always disconnect the negative cable from the battery before removing the cluster.

However, it would appear that our clock/tacho cluster is slightly different from the US versions in that the portion circled in red has to be de-soldered to remove the clock sub-assembly successfully:

To gain access to the clusters, you have to remove 4 screws (blue) first to remove the speedometer, the 2 screws (cyan) to remove the clock/tacho cluster and the 3 screws (green) for the fuel/oil pres/econ/water temp cluster.

A precision flat tip screwdriver is used to remove the 3 screws holding the gauge face to the cluster:

The two clock needles were popped off by hand. Following the guide, on the reverse face, 5 screws were removed, 2 that hold the clock sub-assembly to the metal plate and 3 (in a triangular configuration) that hold the tachometer sub-assembly to the plate.

These are the two capacitors that cause slow or no clock movement:

They are de-soldered out and replaced with fresh 100uF 35V caps:

Now this is why I mentioned the reference guide provided shows that the US version is different from Euro/Asian? version. If the pin (circled in red in the first photo above) was not de-soldered and the clock sub-assembly forced out after removing the two mounting screws, you will damage part of the circuit board where the metal ground pin is located (area in cyan):

Fortunately I managed to repair the torn section by forming solder bridges across the 3 affected circuit traces. Finally some use of a misspent youth in DIY audio

Installation is the reverse. The 2 capacitors cost less than SGD2 so this is an excellent cheap and good repair to DIY! Of course some soldering knowledge is required which I believe most guys should have from technical classes in school.