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240 1989 Speedometer Not Working 200 1989

I have replaced my odometer gears in my 1989 Volvo 240 DL. The tachometer was working previously but now the speedometer arm is fluctuating all over. "It would go to zero, then fully peg at the top end". All connections are correct.

I was told by the company from which I purchased the gears the following:

"There is a circuit breaker on the circuit board that can become tripped during the and removal and installation of the cluster. There is no way to manually reset this and you will just need to drive the vehicle for it to reset automatically. I have had clients drive for one to two weeks for it to reset but have not had one to date not reset using this method."

Can anyone tell me if this is correct? Does anyone else have any other trouble shooting solutions that I might try? I would appreciate any help.








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DIY gear replacement 200 1989

Your quote about the circuit breaker is incorrect.

Here's my canned response to failed gear replacements:

1. Find the broken teeth and get them out of the ring gear.
2. Be sure the rotor's thrust bearing is not jammed.
3. Reflow the three motor pin terminal solder connections.
4. Check to see you didn't plug the tach wire on the cruise control tabs.
5. Read this thread 92 240 Speedo good, odometer inoperative
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

"Never trust the work of the last guy, even if you're the last guy"








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DIY gear replacement 200 1989

Thanks a bunch Art!

I appreciate your feedback and love love the quote ... "Never trust the work of the last guy, even if you're the last guy" In this case you are 100% correct. This "last guy" screwed it up!

Paul








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DIY gear replacement 200 1989

Hi Paul,

Just want to assure you the quote fits me nearly 100% of the time, as it has been a long time since I've acquired anything that has been worked on by anyone else. But coincidence it was in this thread. :)


--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.








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240 1989 Speedometer Not Working 200 1989

Hi,

Interesting that he brought up the idea that there is some sort of automatic circuit breaker built into the circuit board on the cluster. This I do not think so!
The brains to do such a thing are not on that circuit board. It might be in the ECU, if this year cluster even talks to the ECU. I don't think that started until 1992 and may have more to do with idling or timing, I have read.

There is a fuse strip, made out of circuit trace material, that fits right over the top of the speedometers white housing. It is held down by two screws at each end.
Sometimes people who do the service work, like you did, remove those screws inadvertently when removing the backside from the black housing.
If this is done it will cause some things like idiot lights or the charging function until you make sure the strip is put back tight.

I can, on most occasions, see the speedometer needle jump up when first starting the engine but it's not very far up, maybe up ten mile per hour. I have always written it off to the electronics or the speedometer electrics first getting its jolt of juice when coming on line.
Yours does seem to be excessive. On new cars some do that to impress somebody? Not me, I see it as wear!

When you say something about the tachometer, is this one built into the cluster itself and is as big as those with a clock in that spot? You did not say if it was still working now as usual? Just it was before the tear down.

There is a white wire with a red stripe that you have to be careful with. It goes only to a tachometer and no where else on the cluster! If you plug it on the cluster it can fry the speedometer.

This white/red comes from the ignition coil and it is run loosely out of the normal wiring loom. It is to be used only the small diameter tachometers mounted to the right of the cluster as it easily reaches that far over. Thus is not saying it can't be used elsewhere.

I have never owned the large tachometer cluster so it do not know how those are wired. The big clock gets its power off the circuit board through wired up plastic towers on the board that have 12 volts on all the time.

Double check what wires really go into that left area! Don't put anything on those double prongs ones, near the speedometer. They usually have a piece off rubber hose on them to stop you.

The tachometer must have a separate power system that goes off with the key switch and possibly that wild white/red wire on goes to the negative terminal on the tachometer. Don't hold me to that!
Maybe you have got something in the wrong place despite your best efforts!
I have learned its better to take pictures unless it's a one hour turn-around job!

There is a single yellow or a yellow/red that only goes to one bottom corner of the cluster. A shift up arrow light maybe ? I don't know what it does but as I remember its non-insulated terminal on the end, as where as the White/Red has a plastic tipped end on it.
For all I know, if the White/red gets grounded, it might kill the engine.
If I'm not using a small tachometer, I keep black tape on it, so I will not hook it to anything!

I still have one car that I will be putting a small tachometer and voltmeter into soon.
I was into the dash, not long ago, for a non-working clock and I also put in a new odometer gear ahead of it crashing.

I still put some tape on the loose wire to keep that snake from biting me!
If I go to remove black tape off of something, I'm suppose to think, Why is it on here?
Habit from working with High Voltage AC, it might be a hot wire! This works for me anyways!

Again, It has been mistakenly used before and has harmed a many of our Brickboarder's speedometer clusters.

Phil








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240 1989 Speedometer Not Working 200 1989

Thanks Phil,

I really appreciate all of your thoughts you provided! I finally gave up and sent the unit to a rebuilder. They indicated that several capacitors were blown and needed replacing. I'm thinking the "red and white" wire you referred to got the best of me. Dumb mistake. Hopefully when I receive my cluster I can re-install and all will be good. Thanks a million!

Paul







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