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1992 E230 tachometer dead

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  yzlian 
#1 ·
My W124 was imported from japan, a E230 model from 1992 (not the 190 body, ie looks like the 260 and up) not sold in the US. It was almost new with 29000 KM on the odom when bought in 2013, 1-owner, and everything working fine since. But today i found the tachometer went dead:crying. The car started and ran absolutely normal. So, what went wrong? How should i start about diagnosing and fixing it? :confused:Don't have much experience with car repairs, and zero experience in MB repairs, although i have been working with boats and marine diesel engines. Many thanks! Joseph
 
#2 · (Edited)
Thats relatively easy to diagnose and fix. First of all is the clock just below the tachometer still working? If NO, then the contacts between the tachometer/clock and the rest of the cluster are the problem and they'll need to be cleaned. Pull the cluster, disassemble, clean the contacts that run across the bottom of the cluster and you're done.

If the tach is dead but your clock is still working, then the mostly likely culprit is the electrolytic capacitors on the PCB behind the tach. These age, start leaking and fail with age. Thats just the nature of capacitors. There's 2, they're 10c components need to removed and new one soldered in. You can check them by testing for short circuit across the 2 pins. You'll also likely need to replace one burned resistor (see the video).

Another option for you is to use the tachometer circuit board from a 190e 2.3.

The new capacitors on my diesel tach (its slightly different from your gasser) are the black cylindrical components on the right. The new resistor is blue on the left. The values will be different on your 230e.
 
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