The odometer in my Charger doesn't work even after replacing the gears with new ones from the website. Is my gauge just shot?
The odometer in my Charger doesn't work even after replacing the gears with new ones from the website. Is my gauge just shot?
I found my stash of extra '90 speedometer parts, including my previous one which I know had a functioning odometer before the smaller gear broke. Swapped the new gears into that one. Still doesn't work. I put the old larger gear back in with no luck. I made sure the gear set was seated all the way and meshing with the odometer and trip gears.
The gears themselves seem to be driven by a small electric motor that is mounted to the side of the speedometer body; there's no mechanical connection between the speedometer motor and the odometer gears. The speedometer has a three wire flat cable that plugs into a socket on the main circuit board. One pin is the signal from the VSS via the logic module. The other two seem to be power and ground, best I can tell by tracing the printed board. I reflowed the solder where the speedometer plugs into the main cluster circuit board, and verified continuity. Nothing has worked so far.
Everything worked fine before the gears broke, and worked again temporarily when I swapped in a set of used gears (which also eventually broke). All the gauges are working perfectly except the trip/odometer. The only thing I've changed to the cluster was converting to LED lighting.
Speedometergears.com just emailed me back a quote for $195 to fix the entire cluster for my 1991 Omni. WTF. It's like they didn't even read my email.
I'm infinitely frustrated right now.
$195! ----, send it to me and I'll at least test the little stepper motor to see if works. I've never heard of them failing. It's been the gears every time. But if that doesn't work, good gears won't do much.
Any broken teeth on the individual digits of the odometer? Is your speed sensor the type with both the cable and a sensor, or is it just the sensor type? Does the speedometer work?
Jon J.
1989 Daytona ES 2.4L DOHC
2003 Neon SXT - gone but never forgotten
If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is!
It's fully electric, no cable. Speedometer works flawlessly (and is actually more accurate than the Daytona's. Odd for an L-body)
I took that motor (and its circuit board) back off tonight and checked that actually. The gears on both the trip and odometer turn freely and are in good shape. The trip reset works smooth as butter (I did clean and grease that when I originally installed this speedo). So I put it back together one more time, and stuck a pick in there to see if they still turned. They were seized up. So I loosened the screws slightly until they did turn, and I could see the stepper motor spinning. Thinking I was on to something, I reinstalled it and took it for a test drive. It works now. The movement is very notchy, so I think I may need to adjust it a touch more, but I'm soo glad it works again.
Now if I could just figure out the check engine light and the oiling issue, I'll be in business.
The movement has always been pretty notchy on my cars. It's a stepper that runs on a pretty coarse frequency from the speed sensor anyway. I'd compare it with some highway mile markers and if it's counting correctly, I'd leave it.
Jon J.
1989 Daytona ES 2.4L DOHC
2003 Neon SXT - gone but never forgotten
If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is!
Yeah, it's reading pretty accurately.