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Date:         Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:29:30 -0700
Reply-To:     Dave Martin <deaddave@EXCITE.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Dave Martin <deaddave@EXCITE.COM>
Subject:      Re: Odometer Broken
Comments: To: onanov@MINDSPRING.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Donald, Check out this website at http://www.speedometer.com

This can happen if you reset your trip meter while the vehicle is in motion. This post may help you also if you are a do it your self-er

Best of luck. Dave ----- 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 but 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

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