S13 analog speedometer acting funny

[bcar240]

started as minor problems at first, if it was cool outside the speedo would die and bottom out after about 5 min of driving and come back within a minute. Now it is doing weirder stuff like staying out for 5 minutes, pegging to the top of the scale, or reading like 20% of my real speed . I actually changed the speedo unit in this car with another used one a few years ago when I got it because it was not feeding the odometer servo correctly. I heard some other users talking about a fix for speedo problems in cold weather, but I could not find the actual fix and were not sure if they were talking specifically about the digital clusters. Has anyone heard of this or this problem in general? I am also looking for new speedo units but the only source I have really found is clusters from parted out cars on ebay.

[jiggaboo240]

have you thought of checking your speed sensor and the wiring to the speedometer?

[bcar240]

Thanks for the reply. I forgot to mention in my first post that the odometer continues to read and advance correctly no matter what the speedo needle is doing. That was leading me to believe that the problem was with the electronics in the gauge itself.

[jiggaboo240]

have you checked the wiring in it?

[bcar240]

From the last time I disassembled the gauge cluster, I think I remembered the speedo is mostly just a circuit board. I think the problem is with that circuit board somewhere in the area that controls the needle position, because the odometer which is down the line from the speedo in the signal chain still works. I guess I would like to get a replacement gauge at least if I can't determine a likely culprit, because if I go through the effort to drop the steering column and get to the gauge cluster I am only going to want to do it once.

[92pr240]

This same thing is happening to my 93 s13. I switched my whole unit too and i didnt get any change The only difference is that it wont read my speed at all any more, i have to watch my rpms to tell how fast im going. I went to this mechanic and he brought it to Nissan, they said it was the silver piece on the back that had to be replaced and that it was going to cost somewhere around 300. i havent got it fixed yet but id see if that was the problem.

[bcar240]

Hmm, very curious. Do you have more details on the silver piece? Was it part of the cluster?

I'd prefer to keep the speedo if it isn't that, last time I just happened to have a spare gauge cluster sitting around (what are the chances). And I would really like to avoid the troubleshooting from before that involved driving around with the steering column in my lap.