So naturally I was perched on the edge of my recliner with the gauge binnacle from my 1984 Mercedes spread out in pieces in front of me .
I was taking it apart to clean the Diesel smoke residue off the inside of the clear lens as the gauges were hard to see, I'd taken the speedometer out and sent it off for overhaul and repair of the odometer that uncharacteristically made it to a whopping 409,000 miles before stopping .
The exterior was fairly easy to clean but the inside was hard to reach , eventually I got it pretty good but wasn't 100 % satisfied with it even after polishing the clear lens inside and out with Meguiar's Plastic Polish .
I also discovered upon removing the combination engine gauge that one of the screw supports was cracked and fell off as I lifted it out .
A week ago I'd swapped the entire binnacle out for a spare one from a 1980 N/A 300D I had lying around so after pondering it a bit I decided to make up a box of loose parts and a couple tools and drive off to the ProPel Bio-Diesel station as the low fuel lamp had been on most of the day and I didn't want to run out in the rain .
After tanking up the station was quiet so I parked under the canopy away from the pumps and went to work, assembling the 1984 gauges into the 1980 binnacle housing and everything was going fine until I reached for the freshly overhauled Speedometer that was no where to be seen
.
I'd left it in Pasadena
so I buttoned up the binnacle sans speedo and trundled back to Pasadena, ran in and grabbed the speedo in it's nice rain proof baggie, drove to another, closer gas station with canopy but no Diesel fuel and took the dash apart again, taking my time and sipping my nice hot coffee from the first station in Arcadia
.
Finished it all up and tested it, every thing seemed to work O.K. so I went to wash my hands and discovered it was approaching midnight and they'd locked the doors, no bathroom nor alcohol access said the hand lettered sign
.
The binnacle I used is O.K. but has a crack in one of the lenses and the last person in there over tightened and stripped a screw hole so I'll have to keep an eye out for another undamaged one to clean, polish and install my gauges into .
The gauge faces are matte black and so didn't need much cleaning but the clock's hands were covered in soot, I wetted a napkin with my tongue and gently wiped them and the original orange paint looks fine again .
As long as I had it all apart I wiped clean every bulb's glass and dusted all the various plastic, used Ether (Aerosol starting fluid) to clean the gauge illumination rheostat and now I have a working dimmer and the gauges are *so* bright I don't need to turn it up as bright as it goes ~ quite a change from most W123's .
The combination Tachometer and Clock had been replaced as it is dated 1992, maybe that 'mechanic' was who broke one screw hole and left out an important grounding screw elsewhere .
It's not done as perfectly as I'd like but at least I can once again track both my fuel economy and maintenance , I just did a HOT L.O.F. .
-Nate
