Is this normal??

[skylinedreams]

I just curious if anyone has had this problem before. my odometer stopped the other day then it started working again and now its stopped again has anyone ever seen this happen before and if so how do i fix this. also im not sure if this has anything to do with it but when i reset my trip odometer it never gos back to zero it usually gos to like 8 or 5 but never zero

[bcar240]

yeah, this happens. It was one of the problems I inherited when I bought my car. In my case the intermittant operation was because something electrical get messed up in my speedo unit. The speedo unit feeds a servo motor which turns the odometer gears. Something happened to the speedo, it was registering the speedo ok, but it wasn't driving the servo all the time. It could also be a bad servo, or the worm gear being loose on the shaft, or even a bad cluster (more rare.)The problem with it not resetting is usually due to one of the "fingers" (for lack of a better word) breaking off. When you push the reset, the gearing disengages and little "finger" things come down and push all the wheels back to zero.If you want to fix it, you either can replace the whole gauge cluster, or try to disagnose and fix the problem. In your case, since the mechanics of the odometer itself are broken, you would need to replace the unit as well as anything else that is bad if you want to fix the resetting.

[bcar240]

Here is a post I did for someone else who had a similar problem. It explains how to get to the gauge cluster and what to look for. Sorry it is so long, it is a fairly intricate operation...

I finally found it, hidden in my links.http://www.lsauto.com/install.asp That is how to get your dash apart, get the cluster out, and get the speedo out. Once you have the speedo unit out, you can access the odometer. There are a few more screws to take it out. Remember where all these go, some are different lenghts! The odometer might come apart slightly when you remove these screws (not like the numbers falling out or anything.) Just take a good look at how it all goes together (maybe take some pictures) Setting mine back up was a trial and error process cause I didn't remember exactly how the gears connected. When it is apart it is now time to troubleshoot, there is a worm gear from the servo motor that drives a long metal rod with gears on it that turn the trip/odo gears. When it is out, check for wear on the gears and make sure none of the gears have become disconnected and are "freewheeling" on their shafts. Also, even though it is very hard to drive the car with the steering column dropped and the cluster disconnected (I did it at like 2 in the morning) I hooked everything up electrically while it was out of the cluster and put a mark with a sharpie on the worm gear of the servo motor and watched it as I drove around to see if it was moving (turns VERY slow). If it is then there is probably something wrong with the odo gearing, which is a quick swap if you can't fix it, although if you want to fix the milage you gotta turn it a bit (you can turn it forwards or backward by hand if you need to correct a replacement) If the servo isn't turning it is either bad, the speedo unit is bad (my problem), or there is something weird with the cluster itself (more rare.) So, it might be easier in the long run to replace the cluster, but you could easily get the odo out of the replacement and reset it if needed. Good luck!

[skylinedreams]

Thanx for the help im gonna have to wait till the weekend to take it out though. I heard when you try to turn an odometer backwards you strip the gears out is this true cuz i think im just gonna replace my gauge cluster just to save myself the trouble (and get one with a check engine light)