1997 850 fixing and resetting odometer

thedancingfiddle · Post by **thedancingfiddle** » 21 Jun 2014, 17:26

Hey all,

I might finally have time in the next couple days to fix the odometer which was broken when I got the car. It would be nice to move it forward to show the actual milage before I put it all back together. Does anyone know approx. how long it might take to spin it forward about 25,000 miles?

I've read all the info I can find on this, including how people have moved it with a eraser on a power drill. Unfortunately, the odometer stopped about 6 years before I got the car, showing 125,587. I now know that the car actually has about 152,000 miles on it....

Thanks!
- Cedar

Post by **erikv11** » 21 Jun 2014, 17:38

I don't remember details of how I did it, but I changed one by just forcing a couple of the digits to where they needed to be. Was super easy and fast, and the odo works great now, but proceed at your own risk ...

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 21 Jun 2014, 21:00

I chucked up a pencil (eraser side out) in a battery drill and got a bunch of miles added in well under an hour. It was 10s of thousands of miles as I recall.

...Lee

Post by **tryingbe** » 21 Jun 2014, 21:48

Since I had 100,000 miles to roll forward, I broke the plastic guards behind the odometer, took out the shaft, took out all the little gears with the number, and put them back one at a time with the correct digits facing forward. Took all 3 - 5 minutes.

thedancingfiddle · Post by **thedancingfiddle** » 22 Jun 2014, 15:23

Well I'm working on it now, and I tried the eraser in the drill for a bit. On the fastest my drill would go, it was turning approx. 150 mi/minute. At this rate it would take over 3 hours to go the 28k plus miles I needed to advance it, so I took it apart a bit further and managed to get the gears disconnected enough to manually move the numbers individually. Put it back together with the correct digits forward, and so far so good! It advances when turning the gear, and the trip meter resets to zero.

Now I have to wait until tomorrow to put it back in the car, since I evidently ordered the wrong bulbs for the 3w lights, and the parts store is closed sundays. But I want to get the bulbs replaced since I definitely don't plan on trying to take this all out again!

All keep you all posted, and thanks for the suggestions!

thedancingfiddle · Post by **thedancingfiddle** » 22 Jun 2014, 16:30

Quick other question: I forgot to check if the mile on the odo. changes at the same time the trip rolls from 9/10 to 1 mi. Does this really matter? I can't think of why it would, especially since one might have reset the trip halfway through an odo mile at any point....

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 22 Jun 2014, 17:00

Some people obsess about that, I'm not one of them. In its natural state the zero reset will change the synchronization with the main odometer. I reset my trip odometer on every fill up out of habit.

...Lee

thedancingfiddle · Post by **thedancingfiddle** » 22 Jun 2014, 17:08

Ok thanks. I reset the trip every fill up as well - at least I did on my old 850, and hopefully now will be able to on this car

Post by **rspi** » 22 Jun 2014, 17:59

Changing the mileage without reading the cluster for the REAL miles is pointless. My ODO went out once and I went to change the gears thinking I had traveled about 3,400 miles, turns out that I actually traveled 7,200 miles in 48 days. 6+ years of it not working and you think it is only 25,000 miles off? Man I would really have the cluster read or simply not worry about it.

I checked one once with 125,000 on it and the cluster read 223,800. Talking about error.

thedancingfiddle · Post by **thedancingfiddle** » 22 Jun 2014, 18:50

rspi - I have read the cluster, so don't worry

The real miles is about 28,000 more than what the odometer showed.
The reason it is only that in the last 6 years is that the former owner rarely drove the car (their 2nd car). It is in really good shape overall (being a one owner '97 with only 153k miles on it!), and this is the primary reason I bought the car. Definitely needed some TLC after having sat unused for most of the last few years, but it's quite nice now. And now the odo. doesn't show 125587 anymore