Gauges and valve adjustment

[Mikealwa]

I was driving my car tonight and for the first time the speedometer stopped working for a second, but started working again. The tach doesn't work the mph gauge randomly moves for some reason but it's nonsense. I can check the sensor on the rear diff correct? That could cause issue with the speedo, but I plan on taking out the cluster to inspect the so board and connections. Does it make sense just to buy new batteries and put them in? All other gauges seem to work...if you hit the dash...

Also unrelated the last major maintenance issue left for me to do on this new to me car with 350k mile engine is a valve adjustment, but I want to wait for warm weather and plan to drive the car a few thousand miles the rest of winter. Is that dangerous for the engine? It seems to run fine as far as I can tell, I did timing belt, seals, distributor, water pump, trans and diff/transfer case fluid.

[M_3_X]

Re: Valve adjustment.
Unless it sounds like an 8 cylinder diesel, has no power and uses a lot of gas, you’ll be fine to drive a couple thousand miles.

Timing belt is the most critical maintenance item on this engine.

[superj]

when you take the cluster out, you could just have some dirty connections or maybe a bad trace on the mother board. it could also be batteries and is most likely batteries but you never know till you get in there

[Mikealwa]

Any way of knowing what batteries I need before taking things apart? I have a 10/88 production.

[superj]

there is some posts, either on here, or one of the other forums but you have to google for it. I cannot remember what types were for what years so I don't want to tell you the wrong kind.

there is a write up somewhere where someone made a remote battery holder that put the batteries in a more easily accessible spot and they used rechargeable ni-cad, or something like that, batteries. google should be able to find it though. e30 cluster batteries or bmw cluster batteries would probably result in decent search findings

[323i E30]

Any way of knowing what batteries I need before taking things apart? I have a 10/88 production.

http://bavrest.com/2/post/2014/01/bmw-e30-si-board.html

[richardodn]

You can determine if you have the early vs late board style easily enough, but you can't tell for certain which batteries you have.

[superj]

you can tell that by if it has a coding plug, right? the early ones didn't have them, right? for some reason that is in my head

[Mikealwa]

I got new batteries coming. The funniest thing, I drove the car about 500 miles since I bought it in October. All the sudden for the first time today the tach and mpg gauge worked intermittently for the first time. Weird.

[Mikealwa]

...now it just kinda works all the time "knock on wood"

[superj]

could be a connection is dirty or semi loose