Need Speedo Help Quickly

[bduke23]

Heres what happened:

Driving to work after my last final exam today, my speedo suddenly shot up past 180 km/h, all the way to touching bottom. It went up extremely quickly, from 60 to 180 in about a half second. It is now stuck there, and I have no speedometer.

It has done something similar in the past, would shoot up and read high for a couple minutes, but always went back to normal relatively quickly. The trip and odometer are both working as normal however.

I am going home for christmas, a 3 hour drive, in two days so I need this fixed quick. I have gathered from the tech library my 93 has a cable operated Speedo. Could the problem be the cable, or is it likely the speedo guage itself?

 

[adsm08]

I'm thinking you need a new head. Sounds like the innards that run the needle broke and the needle fell. Since it was on the high side of the gauge that's where it went. If you'd been below 45 MPH it would have fallen down, and if you'd been at 45, it woulda been a crap shoot.

 

['99 EB Explorer]

^+1

 

[adsm08]

Except I did my math wrong. 60 KPH is only about 37 MPH. The issue is still likely in the head.

 

[bduke23]

Ok, so what is the head? Is that in the gauge itself?

 

[snake]

Yeah, that is the speedo in the dash. They are removable from the cluster so a boneyard unit should slide right in its place by just removing a few screws...

 

[bduke23]

So the speedo unit is seperable from the rest of the cluster? I talked to the dealer and they told me I would have to replace the whole cluster, so this is great news!

 

[snake]

Yep. You can remove each any every gauge separately including the speedo. The stealership wants to sell big dollar parts so they sell the whole cluster.

 

[bduke23]

That doesnt surprise me at all. I couldn't get the part through any parts stores here or the dealer, but have located one at a wrecker. He's pulling the whole cluster for me, and it comes with a warranty. Hopefully with this cluster my tach will read correctly again too.

 

[bduke23]

Just to finish off this thread, here's an update:

Got a whole new cluster from a wrecker, and just swapped the old one out. The speedo now works just fine, and my tach is now correct as well. It always worked seemingly as normal, it just always seemed to read a lot lower than actual rpm. It was a pretty easy swap, just followed the how to on swaping out the cluster from the write up in the tech library under "how speedometer works". The only minor problem encountered was having to disconnect the speedo cable from the transfer case so I could pull the cluster out far enough to slip my hand behind and pull the speedo cable of the back of the cluster.

 

[adsm08]

Yep. You can remove each any every gauge separately including the speedo. The stealership wants to sell big dollar parts so they sell the whole cluster.

It's more like FORD decided that just making the individual heads wasn't cost effective and so the individual heads aren't available separately. That makes the only way to get them buying a whole cluster.


Don't demonize the dealer because the manufacturer won't sell him the smaller parts.

 

[MountainMike]

It's more like FORD decided that just making the individual heads wasn't cost effective and so the individual heads aren't available separately. That makes the only way to get them buying a whole cluster.


Don't demonize the dealer because the manufacturer won't sell him the smaller parts.

Thank you man, I'm glad somebody out there gets it.

 

[adsm08]

Thank you man, I'm glad somebody out there gets it.

Honestly, I don't think anyone can truly understand the reasons things are the way they are at the dealership until they have spent a few years working in one.

 

[MountainMike]

Yep, people always call us the "stealership" but if you wanted cheap why did you go there? You had to know it was more expensive. Parts, just like getting work done in the service department, isn't about getting it done cheap. It's about getting it done right with the right components.