vegascoug

New 4runner owner here (90 actually not new) and I bought a cluster off Ebay for the lens cover, great shape, not a scratch on it, for only $10. I was told it was out of a 95, so I assumed it wouldn't work in my rig, but when I look at it there is a spot for the cable to clip on to so it looks like a cable driven one, in fact it looks just like the one in my 90 now.

Is there a noticeable difference between the two clusters? I would assume there wouldn't be a white nipple (if you will) to clip the cable onto if it was not a cable driven speedo.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, great forumhere so I thought some expert might be able to help me.

Thanks!

mike_d

it could be the same. a cable driven speedo is just a volt meter calibrated to show speed. the voltage comes from rotating a magnetic field through some coils, and the rotating comes from the cable, so the faster the cable rotates, the more voltage and the more needle deflection. so when the changed to a speed sensor, the speed sensor sends pulses to the ecu to tell it how fast to go. and then the ecu sends a voltage to the speedometer to deflect the needle. the easiest thing for the engineers would be just to send the same voltage that the rotation would do. and rather then redesigning everything, i bet the cable part was still included and just not used. just like on my gauge cluster i have an a/t temp light even though i have a manual tranny.

vegascoug

Does anyone have a picture of an electronic speedo cluster? The back of it I mean?

trythis

The cable style uses a friction plate to rotate a needle that is sprung load (or loaded?). Mine doesnt have a volt meter or any electronic parts between the cable and the needle, just some metal discs and some goo where the needles shaft is forced to pivot. there are little gears that turn the odometer.
The clusters that use electronic speedomeders do not have cable nipples. There are people on this site that have 95's with cable and a guy that says his 92 is electronic, so the standards are fuzzy at best.

vegascoug

So it sounds like this might actually be from a 95 and be cable driven, if so, I scored!

Not only did I get a great place of glass (in college I used to want a great piece of something rhyming with glass but I may have a better speedo head. Mine, like MANY others I have read, makes a little noise when it's cold around 30 MPH. This one has 100,000 less miles on it, so it might be in better shape.

Now to find the post on how to adjust my mileage once I get this installed!

Glenn

If you can adjust it legally, do it before it's installed. This way doesn't work as well as one would hope.

Epic Ed

I have a 95 and it is cable driven. In fact, I burn through a speedo cable about once a year since it runs so close to the headers. I haven't found a way to avoid it yet.

Ed

vegascoug

I've only had mine less than a year, but it came with a bad cable. Replaced the cable and it still had some head noise. Went away quite a bit when I moved the cable (less of a bind I guess) but when it's cold (like now) there is a slight buzz around 30-35.

I have had it apart before, and there's a little bar on top of the numbers that looks like onces it's lifted, you can roll the numbers forward to match the current mileage.

I know I have read a way to adjust it, no sense paying a shop $100 to do it for me.

Memphis4X4

I had to do some research on this several years ago in order to fix a transmission problem that I had. For auto trans 4Runners up through 91, they used a cable driven speedo with a speed sensor in the speedo. There is a second speed sensor in the trans and both send redunant signals for the ECU to compare and by which to control shifts. My sensor in the speedo went bad and caused the transmission to start out in 3rd gear burning it up. In '92 (according to my transmission shop guy), Toyota went to a electronic speedo which had both speed sensors on the auto trans and a sending unit as well to transmit the speed reading to the speedo. What has me baffled is that some later models of trucks as stated above have cable driven speedo's......I wonder if these later trucks have manual transmissions and not auto's and thus didn't have the sensors to pull speed from and thus had to use the cable route. That what I think but someone else can maybe confirm.

Sleepydog

I have a 95, 3.0 automatic (A340H), with a cable driven speedo. I just replaced the cable (what a pain in the arse...).

regularguy412

That's pretty interesting, Sleepydog. I have a 92 with an A340H tranny in it. Over a year ago ( in winter ), my speedo would kinda go haywire first thing in the morning after overnite cold. No noise, but it would not work at all, at first. Then it would begin to swing wildly up to my approximate groundspeed and back to zero. I noted on a few occasions, that even with the needle setting on zero, the odometer would turn. (Go figure that one).

I got under 4Runner and looked. Never did see anything that looked like a cable. I also looked under the dash, with the same results. I figured it was an electronic speedo with a sender. I even went to the local dealer parts desk and looked at the microfiche with the parts manager. We never found the precise item.

Lately, I downloaded the 1993 FSM and printed off the page showing the locations of all the electroinic control compontents. It shows 2 different speed sensors for the A340H. One is on the tailshaft housing of the transfer case ( passenger side ) the other appears to be on the driver's side , a little more toward the front right next to the Transfer Case Linkage Position sensor.

(Insert knock-on-wood-sound here) So far this winter, it's worked right-- no wild swinging. Never did make any noise.

I guess Toyota went back and forth, from year to year, with their choice of speedo drives. Maybe they had an over-abundance of cables or they found them less expensive to use, instead of electronics.

http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...34electron.pdf

Mike in AR

vegascoug

What a pain, that's an understatement. It would have been A LOT easier if that stupid parking brake cable didn't run through the plate. That took me all day to figure out, until my brother told me to use a pair of needle nose vise grips on the cable when it was tight, and then release the brake to get some play in the cable, then it was pretty easy.

I am not Mr. Goodwrench, but can follow directions with the best of them.

trythis

I wonder if they found a huge crate full of coble driven clusters in 95 and figured they didnt need to keep as many for spare parts. They probably just used them up instaed of ordereing more clusters for the last 1/2 year of making that body style. Or do they still use it for the hilux? MAybe they still use cable driven on them?

L33T35T 4Runner

you could just cut that metal bracket and bend it out of the way. that's what i did

gwhayduke

I replaced my speedo cable last year or so. To handle the parking brake cable, I broke off the little tab that actuates the PB Warning light, pulled the parking brake out the end and unhooked the cable. Then I drilled and tapped a hole where the tab broke off, and installed a socket head cap screw to actuate the PB warning light. Works pretty good.

Dadgum speedo is even noisier with the new cable. May have to pull the speedo cluster and see if it can be rebuilt/farm-boyed.

vegascoug

I can't tell you how happy I am...if I could only find where that stupid plug/wire goes to

http://www.go-cougs.net/4runner/ (blurry I know, but I tried)

That speedo I bought looked a little different, something electrical plugged on the back of the cluster so I just took the head out and popped it into mine, worked AWESOME. Super quiet, no "bounce" in the needle, etc. Even took out the tach to match (mine had an orange needle and these were both white).

Then the hard part, moving the mileage forward. I had to take apart the entire cluster, but was able to finally get it off and roll the mileage ahead 100,000 miles to match up with my truck.

Looks to be acurate, going to test it with a GPS later but it is so nice and quite, I like the white needles, etc. More than worth the $22 I spend on Ebay ($10 plus shipping)!!!

trythis

That wire looks very similar to a cigarette lighter wire. Maybe it is a test wire, or for an option like rear defogger, or maybe it is a cruise disconnect switch for the brake, or clutch?