Cluster dying

[Golf Loon]

Heres an interesting one for you blokes.

Car is a 97 model T4 2L electronic speedo.

Now I am familiar with the dreaded vw dance of death with the Golf 3 and SEAT clusters, usually what happens is that the rev counter and electronic speedo stop working and everything else still works, eg clock and fuel etc.

With this one, everything dies and then comes back intermittantly.

I`m thinking (hoping) its an earth fault and will probably pull the cluster out and add an extra earth.

Anyone know what colour the wire is in the back of the speedo and whether its ok to add another earth in this way. I`m no electrician.

I`ll probably rip it apart tomorrow, so sing out with any suggestions guys.

Thanks
Matt

[DVR68U]

it could also be a positive losing connection,
cheers brenton

[pjbplumbing@bigpond.com]

Matt,
My 98 T4 TDI did the same a year or so ago: started with the speedo showing slightly less the true speed, waving up and down. Then, some months later, it was all but resting on "zero", with occassional flick-up then down again. Never did fix it. Sold the van. all other instruments OK.
Peter

[Golf Loon]

So I took the cluster apart today and I now know a lot more about em than when I started.

First off they dont come apart like a golf one, the gauges are bolted to a plastic back and you need to remove the needles and faces to get the circuitboard out.

Unfortunately my petrol and water temp gagues exploded into pieces and all the cogs went everywhere. It took a while, but finally got them back together and recalibrated.

The problem with the board is that all the earths come to a central point and then go via a wire to the multipin connector for the cluster. Where the wire joins the multiplug it had a slightly dry and cracked looking connector.

The way you should do it is thus :

If you took the plastic face off the cluster and looked between the speedo and the revcounter there is a phillips head screw. Undoo that and add an adittional earth, which I then fed out of the back of the cluster and to the dash earthpoint. Do the screw back up and put the face back on.

I could do the next one in 5 minutes.

It works great, I have done 50 kms, the instruments work correctly, the clock doesn`t loose its time and I can use the trip meter.

[william]

good work mate saves up poor sods paying for a new one, another task under that belt of yours how did u go with my old beezas cluster

[Golf Loon]

good work mate saves up poor sods paying for a new one, another task under that belt of yours how did u go with my old beezas cluster

Changed the fuse, plugged in the earth, all good now

[Jmac]

Loon ive done electrics for yonks man and i always wasted time on them trying to salvage the circuit foil more fool me - thats a gold fix mate ill use that for sure- good onya- by the way any joy with that door module????
Not too much stress the vehicle is in Bundy but due to come back in about 8 weeks time
Cheers and Happy New year to ya

[bigyeti]

At last! I'm a T4 '96 2L petrol owner in the UK (there are not very many petrol t4s in the UK) with this problem same electronic speedo, no rev counter in the cluster but fuel gauge has a hissy fit every now and again, recently the speedo has stopped working completely -

I have swapped the cluster with a good tested used one but no difference. I'll have a look at your fix above but I'm not confident....

Any other suggestions from you chaps?

[bigyeti]

At last! I'm a T4 '96 2L petrol owner in the UK (there are not very many petrol t4s in the UK) with this problem same electronic speedo, no rev counter in the cluster but fuel gauge has a hissy fit every now and again, recently the speedo has stopped working completely -

I have swapped the cluster with a good tested used one but no difference. I'll have a look at your fix above but I'm not confident....

Any other suggestions from you chaps?

Just as I thought, took the cluster apart and not a phillips head screw in sight, in fact no screws in sight!

Unfortunately, I am no electrician, but this is what I have done so far..

Swapped cluster - as above
Swapped sender unit (from drive shaft just under exhaust)
tested current at sender - plenty
twiddled cog in sender unit manually to make speedo jump - nothing
checked all associated wiring as much as possible
checked/cleaned up all the earths I could find

My next step would be to take it to a professional but I prefer to fix stuff myself, you learn more that way. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.