I'm assuming the gears are shot at 138K miles. Have some new gears coming in from Jeff @ http://odometergears.com. It's always something. I'm reading to remove the cluster, remove the trim and steering wheel. Of course disconnect battery. Anything to watch out for?
You don't have to pull the steering wheel to remove the cluster. If you don't mind a bit of contortionism, if you pull the driver's side lower trim panel and get yourself on your back so you can look straight up, you have a pretty good look at the back of the instrument cluster - that may be the easiest way to clearly see which of the identically-colored plugs/wires for the cruise control are plugged into the back of the instrument cluster. You can get the cluster yea-so-far out before the cruise-control plug becomes disconnected, but you don't want to lose track of which plug it is, lest you lose your cruise control. Good time to replace the instrument cluster light bulbs - be cautious of the gauge needles, they're delicate. There are a lot of writeups on replacing SI board batteries, or converting them to capacitors. I _think_ I recall reading someplace that later SI boards were made with capacitors instead of the rechargeable batteries which eventually die.
when i did my odometer gears i took off the steering wheel and i have an airbagged wheel. IMHO, its easier to remove the steering wheel and have easy access to the cluster in and out, then to try to get it out with the wheel in place.
It wasn't so hard to pull the cluster without removing the steering wheel.Easier on the E30 than E36. Waiting for replacement gears from odometergears.com.I have the speedo on my desk waiting for parts.Using my phone's GPS as a speedometer.
Popped 3 new gears in. Cleaned up the housing. Looks like it's working. Over the weekend I'll put all the trimmings back in.
Just a heads up, company garagistic offers the gears for a much more palatable price. They are great quality and have been working for a lot of us over on the r3vlimited forum. http://store.garagistic.com/ocart/odometer-gears/e30-odometer-repair coupon code r3vmoto gets em for 20$ shipped http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=213164&page=27
