Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 12:42:54 -0400
Reply-To: 80 Westy Pokey <pokey@VANAGON.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: 80 Westy Pokey <pokey@VANAGON.ORG>
Subject: Re: Odometer Repair in Toronto?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Well I am still looking for a Toronto shop that fixes these,
but I thought I would post this old article on fixing them in
case anyone was interested. Maybe I will get brave and try it
myself (I just picture super gluing my odometer and completly
wrecking it).
Thanks,
Chris
----- 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/mul
t_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
---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 21:04:58 -0400
>From: 80 Westy Pokey <pokey@vanagon.org>
>Subject: Odometer Repair in Toronto?
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM, syncro@yahoogroups.com,
The_Bug_Pack@yahoogroups.com, type2@type2.com
>
>Any Toronto listees know of a local place that fixes
>odometers? I had mine fixed once after someone pressed the
>trip meter while moving. Anyway it is broken again and I
want
>to get it repaired without mailing it to the US.
>
>Thanks,
>Chris