New Year... New Problems. Speedo died!

[StrongSpearWorks]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

If you can post a few pics of the circuit boards inside the speedo i'll see if there's anything that jumps out at me. However it sounds as if the speedo has died with what i'm beginning to call "1991 syndrome" as i know of 3 1991 speedos with this exact same fault now.

Just for fun, 1991 speedos are unique and need to be replaced with another 1991 speedo, no others will fit or connect. The clusters from alternative years won't fit or connect either - might physically go into the hole but the connectors won't fit and even if they did, wouldn't connect to the right connections.

Yeah, 1991 had many good things... but the clocks fitted to 940's weren't one of them.
I've come in from the rain and wind for the moment. I'll post some pictures of the chaos shortly.

[Rversteeg]

There are specialized companies that repair Volvo speedo's, at least here on the continent. Just to get an idea, for a Yakazi speedo they charge around 125 Euro.

[StrongSpearWorks]

Hopefully... there should be some pictures attached.
I followed the guide to separate the clocks from the front but coudn't get it to separate, and not wanting to snap anything off decided to give everything a good squirt of contact cleaner.

Speedo seems to be working now - I'll leave it over night for a real test, but the tach still sits steady at 2700RPM, come what may.

I'm not adverse to sending it off to someone who knows what they're doing. I assume I'd have to block off the turbo vac line if I wanted to run without a cluser for a time... that's one big old vac leak otherwise!

[removaldaddy]

Would not know where to start but great reading on how you dedicated volvo owners work things out and help each other. Oh i own MY18 Volvo XC60

[Laird Scooby]

You really need to remove the speedo from the cluster to see if there's any dry joints or similar on it but before you do that, i hadn't realised the tacho was playing up too.

Remove the kick panel trim by the throttle pedal and find the Multiple Earth point (MEP) behind it. Spray it with contact cleaner, remove each connector and if possible, gently squeeze with a pair of pliers to tighten the scroll on each side of the connector, spray the connector and refit. Repeat for all the connectors on the MEP and retry the instruments.

[StrongSpearWorks]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

You really need to remove the speedo from the cluster to see if there's any dry joints or similar on it but before you do that, i hadn't realised the tacho was playing up too.

Remove the kick panel trim by the throttle pedal and find the Multiple Earth point (MEP) behind it. Spray it with contact cleaner, remove each connector and if possible, gently squeeze with a pair of pliers to tighten the scroll on each side of the connector, spray the connector and refit. Repeat for all the connectors on the MEP and retry the instruments.

The tach hasn’t ever worked in the time I’ve had the car... but this speedo issue is all new. I’ll go and find this earthing point tomorrow in the daylight.

[StrongSpearWorks]

I got the two halves apart and inspected the back of the speedo.
Doesn't look to me like the caps have leaked, but there was a fair amount of verdigris / corrosion on the arms of the microchip.

Plenty of swabbing with a cotton bud soaked in contact cleaner removed most of it, a small bit of 600 grit wet and dry held with tweesers between the arms got the rest.

Fingers crossed... just took it for a spin and it's working again!

Thanks to all how helped with this.

[Laird Scooby]

That was a lucky find! Repeated squirts of contact cleaner would have done the same job as chasing it round with a cotton bud and saved you the faff - hopefully that's the problem solved anyway!

[StrongSpearWorks]

I’ve not put the surround back in as I want to change all the bulbs for LED at some point, and there’s still the issue of the non functional tach.
But at least I know how fast I’m going and it won’t fail the MOT next month because of this (potentially other points of failure, of course).

[Laird Scooby]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-pcs-W5...t/293946264315

Give those a try, i've tried various different ones over the years and so far, they seem to be the best. However it's early days for using them for me, the last ones i had used a silicone bubble to disperse the light but it also shrank over time pulling the LEDs off the board inside.

These are mounted inside rigid acrylic resin which is much less likely to shrink so i'm hoping should be good for some considerable time.



That was taken just after 3pm on a sunny day but you can see they make a difference.