e46 Clock Set Knob Fix (improvised solution)

[kgbeast]

I saw some posts with broken clocks. Here is a mod I did that gets me by with setting clocks, which cost me absolutely nothing, but an hour of time. The story is similar to many... One day I wanted to set the clock and the knob did not work. Twisting and pushing all kind of ways has not produces any result. I have search the internet and was not able to find anything apart from replacing the instrument cluster. I cam across a post somewhere which was a bit better sounding. It was describing how to hot-wire the instrument cluster so the "clock mode" (center position->push) is doing "time forward" instead of "clock mode change". When I opened the cluster and looked at the stuff, I got a slightly different idea.

Once you open the cluster and take it out of the enclosure (so you can actually touch the hands on the speedometer), you will see the following

1-fix.jpg

note the white triangles, you will see these in your cluster as plastic fangs. Break these off completely. Then you have to use a dremel tool or what-have-you to remove the "front teeth" from the ring in the center (circled in green) and make the ring in level with the center notch (where the hook-looking part of the actual knob fits). Then you'd need to reduce the "rear tooth" by about half (the green lines). Now that should be done.

Now you have to mod the knob (sorry for out of focus picture)

2-fix.jpg

You will see that the "clock" knob has hook-looking piece as wella s two wings. Cut the flat wings off completely.

Now you can reassemble the cluster. For ease of reassebly, you might want to cut small notches in the bar-coded plastic for the knob hooks to go through.

Once reassembled, you would have to twist the knob from 6 o'clock to about 11 o'clock and push it in to change the time forward or you can twist and push at about 1 o'clock for backwards, and the clock mode stays the same as stock. Because the knob does not index, you might have to play with it before it actually pushes the buttons below, but for doing it twice a year is not that bad. Good part, you have not touched soldering iron and did not break anything that is not already broken. (I think new cluster comes with new knobs, if you ever decide to go that route, but check first or get new knob as well)

[that bimmer]

Thanks, man. I didnt do it the exact way you described it, but you gave the main idea. Clock safe and sound now 👍

[Onizukachan]

Thanks for this. Nothing was wrong with mine, but I at least learned how to finally set the time, lol.

[coyoteptm]

Thanks - I've been so screwed up with my clock 13 minutes ahead for the last 2 weeks.

Fix was simple - I used standard needle nose pliers for the tan plastic piece - it was so brittle that it took no effort to get rid of the "stop" tabs. For the black knob - I used wire cutters - the tabs came off pretty easy. I didn't trim enough the first time, but wire cutters trimmed pretty close second time.

I'll never be early again!

[thawkshaw]

I took mine apart and found the stem was OK but the white fingers were both broken off. I didn't want to do a lot of grinding and rework on a perfectly good stem so I just plugged it back in with the front lens left off and then I could push the clock set buttons to get the correct time. It was a bit of a pain to get the 4 scres back in the back to hold the clear lens in pace but I managed with a short torx driver.
Now I am good until the time changes again

[All2kool]

I'd have just disconnected the battery at 11:58AM and then reconnected it two minutes later.

[Dagobert]

It doesn't work. It will just say: --:--

[BidNo]

Thanks, brilliant!