Anybody here know how to fix a bouncing needle on my speedometer, its hard to guage speed not to mention damned annoying. A mechanic once told me that I had to grease the cable with graphite to lubricate it. He made it sound really easy but after looking for answers I dont think it is.

 

It is a typical problem on the 1st gen 4Runners and lubricating the cable with graphite involves pulling the dash...not hard, but timely.

 

boucing as in at low speeds it fluctuates a lot?? Or is it going all over the place wacky?? Whats your rig?

 

Mine only bounces a bit if I turn the volume up on the deck.

 

What vehicle and year is this? A '91 or older pickup will have a mechanical speedo cable, '92+ will be electronic. Mine had a bounce that graphite would not solve, so I replaced the cable and it's gone away. My tach needle bounces a little with the booming, big bass 4" Boston Acoustic drivers. Newer trucks with electronic speedometers that have bouncing needles I'd guess mean the sender or gauge are bad. Older trucks with mechanical speedos are mostly because the cable needs lube.

 

Thanks, just reminded me I need to superglue my needle back on, sometimes it's hard to guestimate what speed yer goin...

 

Lubing the speedo cable is not hard at all... takes all of about 20 minutes for the first time... With that said, I am tired of lubing mine and want to get a new one.
I'd bet someone could put together a nice group buy package

 

Another thing that causes that is having the cable not plugged in all the way. Mine bounced horrifyingly after my SR5 cluster swap for years. One day I got really annoyed with it, and did this:

Pull the cluster
Where the cable goes into the housing there's a little rubber bushing, pull that out for room to work
Jam grease/graphite/chainsaw lube/whatever in there
Put the bushing back in and jam it in there pretty good
Re-attach the cable to the cluster and shove it on there HARD
Re-assemble.

I was shocked at the results. At low speeds I still have a *very* slight wobble (less than a needle width) and no more noise.

HTH, YMMV

 

Sorry not to clarify I have a 95 2nd gen, I just had the dealer replace my guage for oil due to the fact that it never not worked until they took it in but this is annoying.

 

Same here.
This reminds me of my old civic. I remember accidentally flooding the engine and it stalling, so I got mad and smacked the dash. The needle jumped to 10kph or so. Sooo... me and the copilot decided to whail on the dash to see how how "fast" we could go. Yeah 60kph hahah

 

never bothered with fixing it, figured it be a solid alibi for speeding and now that the heat is here it hasn't bounced a day yet

 

So on the way to the junkyard this morning my speedometer stopped bouncing as it usually does when the outside temp is at least 90 degrees. So I decided to do a little trouble shooting.
I engaged my cruise control and waited for the decelerate/accelerate constantly problem I've been having. Well what do you know the cruise works perfectly.
This answers two questions, its not the speed sensor and its not the horrible tire and wheel problem. It is without a doubt the speedometer cable.
Now the question is, "to grease" or "to replace"? I'm wondering what it is that makes the speedo work when its really hot? I'm guessing either the heat melts whatever lubricant is still there thus making it work. Or something to do with expansion and contraction?
Oh, another detail was that both the speedo and the cruise worked fine the whole way up there. On the way back in the same heat the speedo bounced and of course the cruise couldn't stay stable either.

 

Except if your truck is a '95 it doesn't have a mechanical speedo cable therefore greasing/not greasing is irrelevant.
I'm not familiar with the total electronic speedo setup, but if the needle is wobbling why not check the sender...if the sender on the tfr case has a driven gear like the mechanical speedo, I know that the driven gear can wear out, and acts erratically before it finally goes.

 

Keith B.
Good point but through research on this forum I've found that some 95's do have the cable. I know its weird apparently they started to change them back.

 

My 95 Has the mechanical gauge cable and this is what I used and Ive only used it once in 4yrs. Pulled the cluster out and unhooked the cable and sprayed a lot of this in it.

 

reminds me when i got pulled when mine was doing that. me trying to be funny i told him waving my finger somewhere between 65 and 75. lol the cop didnt find that to funny

 

cops typically don't find alot funny, thats why there cops, no offense to any cops of yotatech.

Tragic Drive

Thanks for chiming in before the "cable on 95's " doubters burned me at the stake, I'm kidding. Out of curiosity did you yank the cluster on your own or did you find a tutorial on here to show you how to get to it?

 

I just started taking screws out until I got to the cable. The cluster doesn't come out very far with the cable on so this can be tricky.

Good Luck

 

Well, I'll be a suck-egg dog...

 

lol its not hard at all to pull ur cluster, on my 86 its about 4 screws for the dash and another 2 for the cluster and shes out