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Date:         Tue, 24 Oct 2000 10:53:41 -0400
Reply-To:     "1980 VW Westfalia \"Pokey\"" <pokey@VANAGON.ORG>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "1980 VW Westfalia \"Pokey\"" <pokey@VANAGON.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Odometer?intrument cluster question
Comments: To: Candmhok@AOL.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Here is a recent post from the Vanagon list that may help you...

Thanks, Chris Gronski Toronto, Ontario, '80 Westy "Pokey" '87 Chevrolet Sprint (Ice Racer) '91 Pontiac Firefly Convertible

----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Oldenburg" <ELEVENHALF@aol.com> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM> Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2000 12:50 PM Subject: Odometer doesn't work; speedometer does?

Hey Folks-- I just ran up against this problem in my '87 Jetta GL and wanted to report that there is indeed a do-it-yourself fix for it that requires little more than time and lots of patience. A previous kind contributor to this news group directed sufferers if this relatively common VW ailment to the Pelican Parts website

http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Mult_gauge_repair/mult_gauge_repair .htm

that provides an excellent description of how to fix this problem in similar Porsche speedometers. Following those recommendations, and with a little trial and error and adjusting to my VDO speedometer, I managed to repair mine. Hope what I learned from the process helps any of you:

1. Typically, if your odometer doesn't work and your speedometer does, the problem is caused by resetting the trip mileage counter while driving down the road instead of while the car is stopped. Doing this time after time apparently takes its toll on the fit of the odometer "pot-metal gear" on the odometer drive shaft. No longer snug, it doesn't turn the odometer gears (though mine actually worked in the cold of last winter but stopped working soon as it got warmer this spring).

2. First step: Disconnect the negative ground of your battery. Then remove the speedometer. My Jetta has a speedometer cluster that required me to first pull out all of the dashboard switches and knobs, etc--emergency blinker button, radio, heater button, etc. All of them snap out or pull out relatively easily). Then, I removed the dashboard face plate (take out a bunch of screws and pull out), tipped the speedometer cluster forward, reached behind it and detached the speedometer cable and the two electrical connections at the right and left base of the cluster, and by maneuvering the steering wheel a bit eased the cluster out. This may differ in Vanagons and other models, but in the Jetta, pulling the speedometer head from the cluster was mostly a matter of logic, common sense and luck: Start with the obvious screws on the back of the cluster, then remove the push-and-turn lock light bulbs, then carefully release the plastic sheet of circuitry until you can ease the speedometer out.

3. The Porsche site mentions not removing the speedometer needle and gauge face, but in my Jetta VDO speedometer model, there was no backdoor to the insides and the needle and gauge face had to come off. It's easy to do, just that you might get into recalibration issues later. But I had no choice.

4. Once you're looking at the insides of the speedometer, put scotch tap across the bare mileage numbers to hold them together during the repair. I taped them back and front to be sure. Then remove the four screws that hold the guts to the back of the speedometer unit and pull the insides.

5. By now, playing with the gears should give you an idea of how this thing works. The shaft that runs through the main odometer mileage numbers needs to be gently tugged out using, in my model, the small red gear on the left side (front facing you) until the shaft eased out enough to free the pot-metal gear on the opposite side. That greyish gear should be the problem. Turning the red gear on the left (the one turned by the gears coming off the speedometer cable connection and mechanism) doesn't always or perhaps never turns to pot-metal gear on the right. That's because its fitting too loose on the shaft. So after removing that metal gear, I scrapped it some inside the hole that the shaft pushes onto, smoothed some super glue gel with a toothpick around the inside of the hole and let it dry. (Gluing the gear directly to the shaft isn't advisable 'cause if any of the super glue smears elsewhere on the shaft in reassembling, you've just locked up your odometer.) In order to fit it on the shaft again, I actually had to scrap some of the dried glue out. But when I did fit it, it went on with reassuring difficulty and was real snug. I tested ad retested and there no longer seemed to be a problem.

6. Reassemble the shaft and gear into the speedometer mechanism. Remove the tape from the odometer numbers and make sure they're all lined up. Position the speedometer face in place to make sure the number sit in the windows correctly. If they're not in line, adjust them gently by messing with the little gear lock for the number that needs adjusting).

7. Last thing before putting it all back together: Turn the red or lefthand gear on the odometer shaft with your finger and watch the trip mileage counter operate as it turns the next mile on the odometer above it. If it's not flipping the next mile on the odometer at about the 9-tenths going on 0 marker, you'll need to carefully and gently pop out the tiny little connecting gear that drives the pot-metal gear you repaired simultaneously with the main trip mileage counter gear directly below it. Then adjust both of those bigger gears so that it's working the right way and snap the tiny connector gear back in. You may have to do this several times because it's really more luck than skill. Every time you snap the tiny gear back in, it move the position of both gears it connects to and slightly alters how they correspond in the number count.

8. When done, reverse the order of disassembly and put it all back together. Reconnect the speedometer cable and all of the electrical connections behind the speedometer (or cluster) and the dash connections, reconnect your battery cable, and it should work just fine. If, when you turn the key and test drive, you notice the annoying OXY warning light is lit up on your dash (mine was), go to the EDS/OXY sensor box that the speedometer cable connects through (in some models) and push the Oxy button in with a phillips screwdriver and that will turn off the warning light. Sorry for the long winded description. Had to get it down before I forgot anything. Hope this helps someone.

Later-- Don in Virginia

----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Hokanson" <Candmhok@AOL.COM> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM> Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2000 3:14 PM Subject: Odometer?intrument cluster question

> Okey, I am just tryin to make sure I am not misssing something here. I had > some instrument cluster problems, so I picked up a complete used one from the > Junk yard ($100 if anyone is interested). Put it in and everything > electrical but the clock works (i expected the clock not to work frankly, my > old one didn't either). But the odometer and trip counter aren't working. > the speedo does. SOOOO, the odometer is just broken right? it works off of > the same shaft as the speeo right? Am I missing something? Is the fix to > switch out my old speedo unit into the new (used) one? thanks. Charlie. >


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