heebeha

Weird. I strayed engine cleaner on my trani and engine bottom. I powerwashed the under carriage of my 1993 4runner. After I cleaned it the speedometer stop working. The check engine light came on. When I restart the truck, the check light goes off for a while then comes on after a short while. Still not odometer and speedometer .

I havent drove a long way since then. Around town the speedometer does not work and the check light comes. I read a number of posts on this but nothing seems to pertain to my situation. Do you think I fried the sensor with the engine cleaner? I remove it and the gears are fine, all wires are connected as far as I can see.

Anyone ever have this happen? I looked at the connection going to the tranny and it looks ok, gears look good.

HELP.
JD

Kutter

Sounds like a broken speedo cable. Maybe just coincidental timming with your cleaning. Does not sound related to cleaning.

If the cable breaks the speedo and odometer don't work. The ECU takes a speed input from the speedo. No speedo and the ECU will kick out a code and illuminate the check engine light. The code is not serious. I drove a few weeks before I took time to fix it.

New cable is less that $90. Installation is pretty easy for the most part, except till you get to the firewall area. Some people end up cutting the bracket to get the old one out and new one in. I disassembled the parking brake to be able to release the parking cable and remove the firewall bracket without cutting. I do not like to butcher stuff. On the parking brake mechanism there is a short metal rod that sticks our to the left at the back. This little rod is what presses the switch to turn on or off your parking brake light. I twisted/broke off with vise grips the little rod out to release the handle and then was able to pull the handle out and remove the parking brake cable. I ended up drilling the hole where the little rod had been to #7 size and tapping to 1/4" 20. Then I installed a similar length bolt (same length as the little rod) with the head cut off and a flat spot ground on it to mate with the light switch. If I ever need to remove it again I can just remove the bolt and out it all will come.

You will have to remove the multi gauge cluster to get to the back of the speedo. Just do it enough to get one hand behind to unclip the old one and install the new one.

Good luck.

heebeha

Know where I can get one of these for $90? How can I test this? I guess I can open the cluster remove the cable from the guage and see if it spins.. Got another idea?

ewong

does the 93 use a speedo wire and not a mechanical cable (I dunno off hand) - its connected to the trans by the transfer case end. If its a wire ya might have fried the electronics or its got water in it..?

mt_goat

My 93 has an electric speedo sender. Here's a pic, the bottom one is electric the top is mechanical:

BearsRunner

NAPA has the speedo cables for less than 20 Bucks.

INFINITY

i would do a continuity check on the sensor wires. if it has the sensor
if it has the cable (like my 80) unscrew it on the tranny and give the little cable a tug and see if it comes out in half. mine stopped working and it snapped in the middle so i pulled it out and only got half of the cable.
i would guess that it has a sensor, with the FI and computer running most of the engine i would say it has a sensor. good luck

slosurfer

My '93 has an electric speedo sensor. The dealership actually was the cheapest place to get them. If yours is a '93 I bet you have an electric. Make sure you know what you have before you start buying and throwing parts at it.

BearsRunner

Well I just replaced my speedo cable, and just to let you guy's know that the cable from NAPA will not fit onto you existing cluster without slight modification.

What I did was take off the housing that hooks upto the speedo and swapped the new one with the old. I should have taken pics. Ohwell, if you want an inexpensive speedo, goto NAPA. that is if you like tinkering. I do.

One more thing, I found that since I did the replacement this way I did not even have to unbolt the brake line bracket that some of you were talking about, because before I put the cable hopusing back on I just slipped my cable right through th underside, then put my housing on the cable and put everything back on the way it was. It took about 45 minutes.

FredTJ

Geezzzz, I can't believe this forum some times
The OBVIOUS has not been sugggested.
Your CEL is on, PULL THE @%$#%@# CODE(s) and
see what you have, FIRST, before you do anything
else.





Fred

Paul H.

My 92 did this and when the code was pulled, it said the sensor was bad. Well it wasn't, the cluster had gone bad.