My spedometer doesn't work, so what all should I look for to see why it isn't working?

 

Do you know how to take it out of the dash?

Are all the lights and other gauges working?

 

I personally don't know how, but I've got a lot of gearhead friends that do. And yeah, everything else is working.

I'm thinking it could just be disconnected like a lot of things were on the car when I got it, but to check that would be a PITA, right? Isn't the cable for it above the tranny?

 

Yeah, I think yours would be cable driven, its not that bad to take the pad and cluster off. It would be a good learning experience for ya anyhow. The cable however, if it is connected to the speedo, might not be connected to the tranny, and on the side of the tranny is the cable that goes into the car.

If you can pull out the gauge just a lil bit and get the cable off of it, you can start the car and see if the cable (the little metal inside part) is moving. If it is, it is connected to the tranny and you dont have to worry about it. if it is not, it could either be the cable is broken, or not attached to the tranny anymore. If the innter part moves it is the gauge, if not, then one of the two options above is the culperate most like.

has it ever worked?

 

When did they switch from cable to electronic? My 87 is elecronic & I thought the cables stopped had with 85s anyways, going electronic starting in 86.

 

I could be mistaken, I thought it was 87 or 88.... if it is not cable driven, then nothing I said will help

In that case, just see if it is plugged in, if it is, check the fuse.... worst case scenario, get a shop manual (Should have one anyhow) and find out where the wires for the gauge come from, and make sure that each point, there is continuity. I am not to sure how to test if the gauge it self works, but I am sure someone in here knows. Never had an issue with an electronic one.

 

Correct.

JamesC

 

Well, mine is cable driven. I know that much.

Thanks for the advice.

 

So...His 86 is cable driven, my 87 is electric. I suspected 86....a member says they started in 86...

 

When my speedometer quit (the first time) it was because the teeth on the driven gear in the transmission were worn off. I would check that first, you just pull it out of the tail of the transmission. Both cable driven and electronic speedos have a driven gear so it will definitely be there.

Just make sure you tighten up the speedo cable after you put the gear back in or you will run into the problem I had the second time the speedometer quit on me which was a sheered off speedo cable end

 

I'll check that out in the morning, but I think I'm going to switch to white face guages. Ones in there now don't light up at all and driving at night is horrible. lol. Only thing in my car that lights up at night (besides my overhead light when the door is open) is my cd player.

Anyone know of a good set of white face gauges that I can interchange with the ones in there now?

 

Interesting. Board wisdom says electric in 86--but this is GM and anything is possible. I did find this, however, from Okfoz, a moderator:

"I do know that the Camaro retained the cable driven speedo till 1989 or 1990, but the firebird went to a electronic speedo in 1986 EXCEPT for those cars not equiped with the gage package, they got a mech cable speedo."

Here's the whole link:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...ht=speedometer

JamesC

 

My speedometer also stopped working. When i put in my V8 I had to put in a different tranny. The tranny I had was from the 8, but it had a cable driven speedo. I took off the tail shaft, swapped out the gears from the 6 to the 8, and replaced the tailshaft with the electric speed sensor. The speedo worked for about a week, and quit on me. I havn't had any chance to look at it, but I assume either the gears stripped / came loose / or the speed sensor was junk and doing the swap just made it worse...



One way or the other I hope I can get it fixed soon, because my fuel gauge doesn't work for some reason either... I'm timing my fuel usage with minutes on the road right now!!

 

I take back my previous statement. My gauge cluster is electronic. I took the cluster out and the back was nothing but a computer board that plugs in snuggly with the adapters in the dash.

I cleaned everything and the cables are attached to the transmission properly, and nothing seems to be bad, but it's still not working. Neither does the Odometer. Could it just be a bad gauge?

 

Does the speedometer needle itself work, but the odometer #s won't move?

If so....That is what happened to mine. One of the drive gears in the back of the speedometer broke a tooth off & the #s just stopped rolling.

I swapped out the ENTIRE gauge cluster, because it was just easier. I have a guy I talked to about making some new ones out of aluminum or steel....Whatever we decided on, but I decided they weren't needed to enough to justify having a batch made & having just ONE, was too high $$ to justify making.

Now that I have the old gauge cluster out, it would merely take me pulling it out & having them made. I wasn't gonna run around with no gauges, while it was being made. And since I have a new cluster, it's no longer a priority for me.

The gear that broke (a single btooth broke off) my arrow is pointing to, is the real light beige one, just maybe 1/8" from the tip of the arrow.

 

Nothing on the speedometer works. The lights do, but that's coming from the cluster itself. The needle doesn't move, the odometer doesn't move. All my other gauges work (except the temp, but that's my fault. Broke the sensor off changing plugs. Oops lol).

 

Anyone? Do I need to replace the gauge or does anyone else have any advice?

 

What you can do is disconnect your speedo cable at the transmission, it's on the driver's side of the trans, not on top, but you'll still need to get the car up. What I did with a similar problem was disconnect the speedo cable, then attached a cordless drill to the end and spun it (counter clockwise if memory serves) and had someone watch the speedo. For me, the speedo was fine and it just happened to be the drive gear in the trans that came loose.

 

I still would bet on the drive gear being the problem. More than likely the teeth wore out and are not catching the driven gear. If you want to make sure, what Quick_Trans_Am said is a great way to check. Just make sure you don't turn the cable the wrong way or you could have some problems.

 

There are only 2 cables on the tranny. I don't see anything else and from what I know it's all electronic. I think everything for the speedo is all on that one cable. I'm no expert on trannies, but from what I'm being told by family is that there is nowhere for a "speedo cable" to connect into.

 

Regardless of digital or mechanical speedo, there will be a cable from the tranny. It goes up into the dash, gets converted to an electronic signal, then is either displays digitally or turns on an electric motor that move the speedometer gauge.

Here's my "mechanical" gauges, but the signals are converted the the electric motor turns the needle of EVERY gauge.

 

Yeah the second pic is that the back of my cluster looks like. so the cable that goes from the tranny, through the firewall and into the dash is the speedo-cable?

 

Both pics are of the same gauge cluster.

 

I know, I was saying thats what mine looks like. But is it the cable the runs through the firewall from the tranny and into the dash?

 

The electronic speedometer "cable" is more like two or three wires (I forget exactly how many) that come out of a circular black box on the driver side of the tail on the transmission. I there are three cables hooked up to 700R4 transmission, two on the driver side and one on the passenger side. The front cable on the driver side is the shifter cable, the rear driver side is for the speedometer. The cable on the passenger side is the kick down cable to control shift points.

All cable driven and electronic speedometers still have a drive and driven gear in the transmission.

 

Well I'm honestly not sure what transmission is in here. It's either the 700R4 or the 350 turbo.

 

3 speeds=no Overdrive
4 speeds=Overdrive

Do you have Overdrive? 700R
No Overdrive? 350

 

Well the shifter says I do... and when I put it in overdrive it drives, but I'm not 100% sure lol. Anyway I could take a pic and show you?

 

A pic won't show us anything you can't see.

At 50 mph...If you STOMP on the gas...Does it JUMP in rpm & accelerate, then, can you "feel" it shift again and the rpms come back down?

From the factory, your car SHOULD have a 700R4, unless a previous own swapped the tranny out.

Or....

Drive at 50mph...Click the shifter down to D...the rpms should jump up, and you feel the "extra" power. Click the shifter back up to Overdrive & the engine gets quieter & the rpms drop.

 

I'll give that a try. I know the original tranny woul have been the 700R4, but the previous owners swapped out the engine for a 305 4barrel, so IMO, I don't know why they would go through the trouble of that without changing the tranny to the 350 turbo. lol.

 

Well we are all pretty sure that it's a 350 turbo in there, but in does have an overdrive. I'm told the newer 350 turbos have overdrives, is this true?