Speed-woe

englemere · Post by **englemere** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:29 am

Car is a '93 2litre ES

She had chronic dial peel which stopped the needle moving, so I replaced the instrument cluster with one from a g reg turbo. Speedo works but intermittently, it seems to work better when its raining lol.
Also the IC reckons I'm doing 25.5 l/km and that the range in a full tank is 300km. Surely this is nonsense...

I checked the speed sensor conection it appears to be okay, there is also a loose cable with a red spade connector flapping about by the speed sensor but I assume that this is another mystery cable cos the 480 seems to be full of them.

Should I take it to Volvo?

Agwa Moose · Post by **Agwa Moose** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 3:17 pm

Were the connectors on the back of the replacement unit the same colour as your original one? if not that could cause some issues, and did you put your original pcb into the new unit? (under the white plastic cover on the back of it) if you didn't then that could be why your infocentre's a bit odd

J

englemere · Post by **englemere** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:15 pm

The connectors matched up for colour, the problem may have been there with the original speedo but I could have confused it with a jammed needle what with all the loose paint.

I didn't swap the PCB's - will do that tonight.

Thanks for the tips - the Haynes manual is full of lies so this forum is proving a useful resource!

JohnTurbo · Post by **JohnTurbo** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 5:51 pm

Haha...well you see i have a turbo with a 2.0 speedo in it that thinks i'm doing 50 to the gallon on boost and have 1000 miles left on a tank.

They aren't compatible.

I do have a turbo one to put in there, otherwise i'd suggest a swap, but it might be you can get yours working right by swapping the PCB on the back of the speedo.

Failing that i might offer my 2.0 one for sale as soon as i am bothered to remove it!

englemere · Post by **englemere** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:05 pm

Swapping the PCBs has sorted the IC out - its telling the truth now.

As for the speedo it must be a loose connection somewhere - when you drive over a bump it starts / stops working! anyone know what that connector is for?

JohnTurbo · Post by **JohnTurbo** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:34 pm

Well i also have that connector...its plugged in at the moment. With the turbo speedo in i obviously have nothing to connect it to...but this makes no difference to anything.

I'm assuming it might be the lambda light or something that the turbo doesn't use...so it might make a difference in yours.

Matthew Brennan · Post by **Matthew Brennan** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:04 pm

Open the bonet, on the battery side of the car stand close to the open bonnet with yer legs pressing on the wing above the wheel, reach down into engine bay, to the left of your hand is a large rounded thing bolted to the engine (starter M?) to the right of yer hand is a driveshaft looking thing that goes diaganolly off towards the wheel. Put yout hand under and left of the starterm? there are two wires on spade connectors plugging into a rounded thing that is set in the starterm? Gearbox? wiggle them.

Works EVERY time on mine, days, weeks or even MONTHS! with a working speedo before you have to do it again!!

Worth a go?!

Matt

Neil Goodwill · Post by **Neil Goodwill** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:08 pm

Matthew, you're a genius!!!
I had an intermittent speedo, and was dreading the removal of the dashboard because it such a PITA. Your instructions led me to discover that the spade connectors had turned green so I scraped them with a screwdriver, wirebrushed and sprayed them with contact cleaner. Now the speedo works a dream.
Many, many thanks.