Speedo wire

[tcmercil]

So - in my attempt to fix my faulty speedo, I cut the wire that plugs into the back of my dash cluster.... which is causing everything to go nuts.... radio cuts out, ABS light as well as AT Oil level.

Removed the cluster this morning - car started fine, and when I touched the speedo wire the same symptoms happened again.

Question is, can I just simply cut that wire and re-splice it? or simply throw some electrical tape around it?

99 OBW - 90k miles auto

[canubaru]

describe the fix you used. what did you you do besides ''cut'' the wire.?

with no signal to the speedo or no front speed sensor, you will not have any power to the rear wheels. the ECU will default to FWD.

what repair did you do? how did you do it?

if all you did was cut a wire than just splice it back.
if you added a wire to the circuit board and that did not fix it, even with the the spliced wire i would remove the added wire.

[tcmercil]

well - I thought I had read to run a small wire from that one, to the back of the speedo.... so I tried to splice into that line with a plastic connector... the ones you crimp down to join two wires together. I obviously pulled it out, but the original wire was spliced into.... I'm just curious if I can cut the entire wire, resplice that into the original clip that connects to the back... knowing that about an 1" of it is probably where it's shorting out

[Se7enLC]

If I'm reading this right, you were trying to fix a broken speedometer. Somewhere you read that you could tap splice into a wire and run that to the speedometer?

Tap Splice:



(got a link that describes what you were trying to do?)

So the fix didn't work, and now the wire you tapped into is causing problems?

If that's all correct, then yes - you can cut the wire completely, strip the ends, and either solder it together or crimp it with a butt-splice.

In order of preferred repair options:

1. Solder the wire back together and heat-shrink the joint
2. Solder the wire back together and electrical tape the joint
3. Crimp the wire back together with a butt-splice and heat-shrink it
4. Crimp the wire back together with a butt-splice and electrical-tape it

You *could* just wrap it in tape, but I don't think that's going to help any. If the conductor is cut by the splice, the tape won't help any and it will still fail sporadically (and possibly while driving!)

[tcmercil]

yup....exactly what I used, and what I did.... I'll go ahead with the sodering option and let you know. That's what I was thinking as well.

Thanks again

[canubaru]

here is the 99speedofix

99 speedo fix - Ultimate Subaru Message Board

[tcmercil]

Well... I soldered everything back together... Did the speedo fix... But before I put the cluster back in... I started her up... She ran fine for about 2-3 min.... Then lost the radio... And tge car again ran bad, I shut it off and well again, she wouldn't restart...All this without the cluster in the car? I'm guessing I'm chasing something else down besides a bad ground wire..

Alternator was replaced already... Not sure if I should look at the ECM or not?