E23(chain or belt)also no temp gauge
 

Fellas:
To many Benzes in the garage and the Beamers are catching up. Once upon a time I had a 325i convertible with 60k that the previous owner stated that he changed the timing belt. The next thing that I knew, my engine was laying on my mechanics table in a million of pieces from the non-changed broken belt.(still haunts me):confused: My 1998 318i never had a belt, so I never worried about it.
The 1986 735i does not have any records with it, and I wanted to check and be sure that it had a belt. If so , I would rather change it than be visting my mechanic again. I just drove it from Philly, to Cleveland and it rode pretty nice except from the slight occasional
miss uopn acceleration. Also, I had no temp gauge, and interior lights????? I have not had a chance to look at any literature to see if any of the electrical problems may be fuse related, like on the Mercedes.
The slight miss scared the mess out of me with timing belt nightmares for 415 miles.

Thanks Fellas

"GO RAIDERS"

The camshaft in the M30 six cylinder is chain driven.

The temp gauge has several failure modes, but is pretty easy to troubleshoot.

I would start with a fuse on the interior light malfunction.

HTH

I agree, first check the fuses. Have you done any electrical work to the car recently?

Jared:
I just picked up the car this week. I haven't had the chance to really mess with it yet. I drove it home from Philly 400 miles, and the only few things that I noticed were the slight miss upon acceleration, the temp gauge, the seat does not respond to all functions, and the interior light. It really sucks not having the book with the car to tell what fuse controls what function. On the MB's lots of problems are often fuse related. I pulled the fuse cover, but did not go through the different fuses. I was hoping to see a fuse layout, but there was none :-(. I think that I will like this better than my previous 3 and 5 series models, even though it's an older car.

See ya,

Are the service indicator lights in the dassh working? Im guessing that the NiCad batteries in the back of the cluster may be dead.

Jared:
The service lghts work, and say that I am over due :-(

Does the cluster come out rather easy?

If the service lights are working, than it's not the batteries.

Herew's a test. Go to the temp sensor, then unplug the connector. Now, using some test probes, you will weant to cross the leads on the connector. This will cause the gauge to spike, and it will go all the way to the right. IF it does this, it means that the gauge is fine, and that you will need to replacve the sender. If it doesnt then it means that you either have a bad gauge, or there is a break in the wiring somewhere.

Thanks Jared:
I am going to have to get my hands on a book for the E23. Though both the BMW and the Mercedes are both German, they are like Strawberry vs Vanilla when looking under the hood :-(
I have to get familiar with where everything is located.

BTW--- Did you ever go Synthetic(oil yet)