Today, when I was attempting to fix my speedometer/odometer (see separate post), in order to reach it, I pulled out the centre instrument cluster an inch or so, after unhooking the oil pressure line from the back. I took the opportunity to clean the inside of the glass of the centre cluster; the chrome rim came off surprisingly easy and cleaning the glass made a huge difference.
However ... when I went for my test drive, I noticed a hospital-like smell in the cabin (like aether) and started to worry - this is what other owners have reported to let us know the capillary tube that runs from the engine block to the temperature gauge was broken. Sure enough, the temp gauge needle did not budge as the engine warmed up, and after a couple of miles the smell came back pretty strong once more. I understand that, once broken, the tube cannot be repaired.
I checked the catalogs, and a complete new unit runs about $250 (ouch!). My questions are:
- whether it is possible to just attach a new tube, or whether a complete new unit is neessary
- how to avoid damage while installing the new unit, as I thought I was being careful enough not to risk this problem as I was working on the instrument cluster; apparently these tubes are very accident-prone?
As always, thank you for any tips, trics etc etc.
What was a bit fristrating is that, after some 4 hours of slowly working my way through taking out the tach, center cluster, then the speedo (was not able to fix this), I ended up being worse off that when I started
. The only good things are that I now have a clean center cluster glass, and when I go back in to do it all over again, I will be able to do it faster - like maybe 3,5 hours!
Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic
