The "Service Due" light used to come on every 3k miles in my car - until recently. I found the brown gear wheel just off the motor driving the clock work broke down - its plastic turned into a sandy consistency loosing teeth in the process. I bought another unit, removed the still intact wheel and had it dublicated by silicon mould and vacuum casting. The precision of the resulting wheel was so good it felt like the original one when mounting on the square shaft end. It works perfectly. I have a second wheel should anyone need one. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
WOW! For what years was this device installed? I am in admiration of your efforts and am curious where it is to be found on a 3.2. I must confess, however, that I am negligent with warning lights. With the single exception of oil pressure. I have my own simplified remedy for the others. If the car runs fine I use black electricians tape to cover the light. This has been going on for decades now. My 3.2 displays as many as six different warning lights, but they are out of sight on the shift console. Its easy to ignore them. The digital clock has been flashing at me now for two years. It needs some tape, but I have become accustomed to it but really need to take care of it. None of this distracts from dilegence of which I am in sorry short supply. You have accomplished something rather significant. And my congratulations are in order!
Urs, Can you give us more information how to proceed, materials needed, etc to dublicate things ? I'm intrested...maybe to make the white plastic connectors for our fuseboxes, but allready with the extra sleeves. Or for the covers for the fuses... Guido
Terrific attention to detail here show us all your kit as this would be very interesting to us all mouldy types. Lovely job though.
David, I don't know exactly. The cars with the check control display have it. It started with the 8 and disappeared sometimes during the 3.2 production run. In the front bay passenger side hiding behind the a/c dryer and below the windshield; see pics. You can reset the warning light by opening the aluminum cover and pressing the button inside with a stick. It will click and it's reset. The red lights are quite useful... low engine oil/gearbox oil is not bad to know, isn't it? Just set the time and it stops flashing! If sometimes the clock stops working and then comes back alive blinking 00:00 (as was the case with mine when I hit a pothole) then the receptor of the orange plug that connect the clock to the ODO pcb may be loose. Unplug it and re-solder the pins. It works normally in mine since. Thank you, Sir. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Guido, I have one of my suppliers working on it, so my information is sparse. He uses a fairly dense RTV mould and then vacuum casts (to eliminate bubbles) PP resin. Each time you pull a part, the mould degrades a tiny little bit. Since those clips need to be rather precise, the mould needs to be replaced often, which adds to the parts price. Your mentioned parts could be made theoretically. The best would be to create the digital data for them so the originals could be rapid prototyped for testing and then for creating the moulds.
You are a man who knows his stuff! My low oil light sensor does not work, but with eight quarts of oil even I can manage the dip stick. I am not sure if I have a tranny oil low sensor. It is one thing that I am moderately concerned about. I had the tranny oil changed and I see no big leaks and was not informed it was low at the time. But it would be nice to have a kick in the butt if it does go towards dry. The oil pressure guage has an idiot light which is a smart thing to have. That is one light that will never see black electricians tape!
David, if your car has the check control display it does have a low gearbox oil warning sensor. How do you know your dip stick sensor doesn't work? The low coolant and low brake fluid level warnings aren't stupid either in my opinion. They could give you some time to pull over or at least monitor 2 relatively important systems. One other to watch is the big red one with the battery symbol. It can come on if you have a charging system problem, OR if the v-belt broke. As it also drives the water pump, you lost cooling and electric power, even with an otherwise intact electrical system. In as much as you could drive for quite a while on the battery alone at daytime, your engine would heat up real fast and you might not see that in time as you'd probably be concerned with your battery level vs distance home... I do agree though that in today's cars' instrument panels, it can go a bit crowded with information. My other car has a speedo, fuel level (no low waring light), odo (no trip counter), and lights for oil pressure, brake fluid level, blinker/hazard and hi beam. The legal minimum. The only other light that would be useful is a battery/alternator light, or a volt meter to tell you when your charging system is sick. The last time that was the case, my nose eventually informed me about the melting diodes at the alternator's rectifier ;-)
You can absolutely do it yourself. I just haven't found the raw materials locally. But my supplier is very good so besides "professional" subcontracting I don't mind to give him personal work to do once a while.
