Speedometer

[Hikersteve74]

My speedometer cable seized in negative 40
Weather in the mountains. Made horrible sound and gauge was pulsing couldnt stop cause weather was dangerous after about 20 miles it snapped ( I thought)
And sound stopped, no mspeedo but odometer worked.
Went to replace , and most parts seemed fine .... gears, cable all connections seemed to have normal wear???
Still I replaced with one from parts van. As I drove to parts van with cable out I noticed odometer not working. Made sense ...kinda.
Before I connected newer cable to trans I hooked up to drill and tested speedo responded so I figured good to go.

Long story short speedo no worky ,odometer works????
I noticed speedo kind of jumped and then went down when testing with drill but figured was RPM thing.
I.also.noticed square in connection behind speedo on gauge panel seemed considerably larger.
Is it possible its stripped out? Still seems square and intact.
I feel like speedo gauge is broke obviously but it responding to drill test has me puzzled.
I assume inner gear in transmission is fine as odometer is working .
So has to be in dash?
Is it possible to replace speedo gauge in cluster or do you have to replace entire gauge panel? I have extra from parts van exact match year, model, motor and trans configuration.

[MarkH]

In my '85 van, the speedometer stopped working, but there was no nasty noise of anything. I checked where it screwed into the back of the gauge cluster and it seemed fine. I unscrewed it and pulled it out of the back of the gauge and the end of the cable (sort-of a squared rod) seemed normal. I put it back together and the speedo worked again for a couple of days and then stopped. This process of me removing it/it working for awhile/then suddenly not working again happened a few times. It seemed like the end of the cable needed to be shoved in a certain distance for it to turn the gauge. But it kept backing out slightly as I drove around. I ended up getting fed up and I jammed the end of the cable into the back of the gauge with some JB-Weld-type epoxy putty. That was about a year ago and so far it's been working fine. I suspect that the "socket" in the back of the gauge was partially stripped or rounded out in it's shallow depth and the cable would only engage in the socket's deeper depth, if that makes sense.

[MarkH]

I just re-read your post and noticed that you said your odometer still worked. If your van is like my 1st gen van, the same cable turns both so it would be strange that the cable reliably turns the odometer and not the speedo. I'd suspect a fault in the speedometer itself. I wonder if there are different internal gears in the gauge cluster that drive the odometer and the speedometer and the speedo one is damaged? I tested my speedometer with a drill too and the needle acted normal by rising steadily (not jumping around). I used a variable speed drill so I could turn it reasonably slowly. I don't know what a drill on full speed would do.

[llamavan]

Have you searched the forum?

In the upper right corner of this page, click "Advanced Search"

Advanced Search > Tag > speedometer
Advanced Search > Tag > speedometer cable



Gwen

[Hikersteve74]

Yeah its really weird... im sure there is a gear seperate from odometer mechanism internally ?just tryun to figure out if it's feasable to repair or just swap dash cluster.
Thanks gwen I did do advanced search but didn't find an answer.. it did narrow down results but no info on gauge configuration or gearing.

[Hikersteve74]

Sorry if I posted wrong N researching on site thought there was difference between 4wd and van speedo cable ... did however find 20 plus post in toyota van speedo cable that were for previas...