Speedometer Going Dead

[JakePSD]

Hey guys, my girlfriend just bought a 97 Mountaineer (apparently after driving mine for 2 months she decided she likes them haha) but her speedometer quits sometimes when shes driving. The cruise still works when the speedometer cuts out so that to me rules out the VSS. Any ideas on whats causing it? All the other gauges work even when the speedometer dies.

One other question, both of our trucks make the same exact squeak, and I can't figure out whats causing it. It squeaks once per engine revolution, and it squeaks with the belt removed. They do it worse when the engine is cold. It's obviously not a huge deal as mines been doing it nearly a year and hers did it when we got it last week. Mine has 180k and hers has about 230k miles. I had an oil analysis done on mine trying to pinpoint the issue (I suspected main bearing as it squeaks once per revolution) but nothing major came up. I'd include a copy but I can't post attachments. Anyway the only thing that showed up abnormal was a slightly higher than average reading of iron and silicon.

 

[colintrax]

VSS drives the speedo, but the cruise should work off the OSS.
I'd make sure the cable is pushed up tight on the back of the cluster.

 

[JakePSD]

Well, an update on all this, it is neither the sensor on the tcase or on the axle. Its the cluster itself, and it only cuts out when it gets warm. In the warmer months it would cut out a lot, now that its damn cold here in Ohio, it only cuts out once the truck gets nice and warm on the inside. Got a new cluster from the junk yard, but the gauges were reading way off, especially the coolant gauge. So I took both of them apart, and tried about every combination of individual gauge modules and the backing (thing with the ribbon on the back) and found that her speedometer itself works fine, its actually the backing is bad somehow. The junkyard speedo cuts out when placed in her backing and her speedo works fine with the junkyard backing, but with the gauges reading off and the fact that some of the lights, mainly the check engine light, are in different locations and don't function properly, we can't use it. Junk yard is gonna replace it or refund us so no worries there. Has anyone ever heard of this kinda thing happening before? Both layers of ribbon appeared ok, I'm wondering if one of the diodes on the back is bad and loses its internal connection due to thermal expansion.

 

[Turdle]

For your squeak.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161590&highlight=chirp+squeak

 

[1992fordgreen]

VSS on tha tailshaft of the trans/case needs replacing.

 

[JakePSD]

VSS on tha tailshaft of the trans/case needs replacing.

Nope. Must not have read what I posted above?:scratch: It's something in the cluster.

 

[1992fordgreen]

Nope. Must not have read what I posted above?:scratch: It's something in the cluster.

Whoops I missed that.

 

[JakePSD]

Good job haha

 

[JakePSD]

Another update, took the junk yard cluster back, they grabbed another from a 97 mountaineer, and it looks like the one we just took back. Every one they had there was the wrong one. Pulled ours out in the parking lot to compare and they had none that looked like the one we need. Why are all of the 97 clusters different from the ones in mine and my girlfriends trucks? I'm starting to think its just an early build 97 thing, hers was made in 7/96, and mine is 5/96. Can someone shed some light on our problem here and possibly tell us exactly what cluster we need for her truck?

Some more details, the ones in our trucks have a yellowish ribbon on the back, all the ones at the junk yard had a reddish ribbon on the back. Also the part number on ours starts with F67, the ones at the yard start with F77. Ours the check engine light is on the bottom right, just to the left of the volt gauge, the wrong ones have it on the far left of the cluster.

 

[bobflood]

Very possibly a build date issue. Try getting a cluster from a 96 and see if that helps.

 

[JakePSD]

Im gonna try that. I was gonna call the junk yard today but got too busy. I did some searching around the forum and did see that a 96 cluster is setup the same way mine and hers are, so since its an early build date they probably just wanted to use up extra inventory. This is becoming about as bad as the early/late '99 super duties. Early '99's are the ******* child of Ford trucks.