Okay, I am new to 3rdgen but heres the story. Always wanted 1 blah blah blah so I found one with 231k miles on it for $500 Soo I bought it before my duty stationed changed so now all my mods have to be done by a friend back home. So we left the bigger projects to the pros and I had them replace the engine with a rebuilt crate 305 jasper ( Hopefuly it is a decent engine? If not I am not out to much money but I dont like to throw it away either...) At the same time we had the tranny changed out with rebuild 5 speed. in the process they changed a BUNCH of wiring and a lot of small odds and ends. But the speed/rpm/fuel guage still does not work. So i was looking at the cable that connects to the tranny and the cut yourself cables are less then 1/2 the price of the kit that comes with a chip. I am not that smart when it comes to electronics. Do you think I can just replace the cable and the cluster start working again? Or would it be the chip thats bad in your opinion? Sorry for the long drawn out post and thanks for the help

 

Welcome to TGO, 3rdgen. Take note that you speedo is electric (there is no cable). You might try the electronics forum, but it sounds as if the shop didn't do you any favors.

JamesC

 

 

Indeed, welcome to thirdgen.org. And, thank you for your service.

(FWIW, I was stationed in Mainz from '79-'82, actually lived in Frankfurt for a few months until housing opened up in Mainz for my wife & me.)

Reports vary on Jasper. Apparently they treat their wholesale customers fairly well, but don't feel bad about screwing retail customers. If that is true, it's pretty sad. But, if the shop has a relationship with Jasper and got the engine for you, it improves your chances of getting an "acceptable" engine.

About the only "water-under-the-bridge" comment would be you probably could have gotten a 350 for the same price. Oh, well...

As noted, a '91 will have an electronic speedometer, not cable drive. If the tranny has a cable drive, they didn't do the tranny swap properly. They need to change the gear drive to a VSS (vehicle speed sensor).

Why did they do a "BUNCH" of rewiring? This should have been an engine/transmission change, unless you also had them do a carb swap at the same time. If that is the case, they probably didn't properly hook up the tach wire, which used to go to the coil, and now needs to go to the "TACH" terminal (assuming they used the typical coil-in-cap HEI distributor).

Again, if they did a carb swap, they probably took the in-tank fuel pump out of the tank, which would give them the opportunity to screw up the fuel level sender.

This has all the appearance of a shop hack job, which is sad enough in itself. But, when a service member is involved, it makes my blood boil. Hopefully I'm just over-reacting.

 

Well sadly I did not go to a carb it's still tbi (yuck) and they said that there was a cable that ran from a gear in the tranny to a thing in the cluster and said that the cluster was probly wore out. Nice to know i got screwed lol. As far as the 350 i went with the 305 sence it is better on mpg and if i feel like going fast i always have my R1 in the garage lol. Where were you stationed? I am at a base called r.o.b. I guess it will be taken the car back to a different shop to have the cluster fixed lol.

 

Well, the tranny they put in may have had a cable, but the one they took out didn't. They should have converted it to the proper output when they put the tranny in. It's not the cluster that is the problem, it's the transmission speedo output type.

Not saying you got screwed, just they didn't do what they should have done.

A small Army post in Mainz-Gonsenheim. I believe it was shut down and turned over to the German government several years ago.