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Speedometer and Gas Gauge Broken...

harpoon

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Humboldt, CA
1998 XJ
2 door
AX-15
I-6
122,000 Miles

This is a stock jeep for now.
Long story. Over the past few weeks my jeep seems to be imploding. First, throw out bearing went. So I dropped the transmission, new clutch and throwout bearing. I went to start the jeep after this repair and the starter would not engage with the ring gear, it was just grinding. Reinstalling the starter noting that the teeth on it had worn square. I cleaned all the contacts on the solenoid, starter motor and the leads on the battery. Still only grinding when I turned the key...weird. No previous starting problems with this jeep, ever. I go out and bought a re-manufactured starter from car quest. Vrooom!! starts up smoothly engaged. I drive it hard for about 40 minutes to an hour. Perfect!! everything works like it has for the entire time I have owned my jeep (8 months). Several hours later I take the jeep on the highway for about ten minutes and as I am on an exit ramp I hear a whining noise from the engine compartment. I look at the dash and the fuel gauge and speedo are at ZERO and the odometer is no longer adding miles but still displays the 122000 miles that are on this jeep. I pull over to a gas station take the key out, engine is off and open the hood to see my new starter SMOKING and going at full bore!! But my engine is not turning. WTF?? I immediately take the negative lead off the battery. Jeep gets a tow home. I pull the starter off, ring gear is intact, gear on the starter is perfect, it did not show any wear, so the solenoid was not engaged when the starter was going. Go back show them this defective starter, they replace it with a new one. I install the newest starter and its fine.

Now the gas gauge, speedo, up shift light and odometer are not working. My jeep has a full tank of gas and moves. All of these were working before my starter shorted out and before the clutch. When I hold the tripometer reset and turn the key no codes come up, and the gauges run through the full range of motion. No blown fuses under the hood or in the passenger compartment. All other dash lights and idiot lights work. All the connections on transmission and gas tank have been quadruple checked. HELP HELP HELP!!
 
Checked it! looked good. Doubled it up with alligator clips and no change in my situation.... How would I go about testing the sending units with my multimeter??
 
I say forget the senders--why would ALL of them quit at the same time?

First, pull the instrument panel and clean and tweak the connector and add some dielectric grease, this is a known problem for late model gauge problems and I believe there is a TSB for a new connector.
 
Check your fuses, something could have overloaded due to the starter screwup.
 
Well thanks for the help you guys.
Turns out it was probably just a coincidence it all went out at the same time as the starter. I jiggled some wires and everything came back to life.
 
When your starter went nutz (technical term) It probably confused the PCM.

Reboot the PCM by removing the negitive battery cable, waiting 5 minutes, and reattaching it. In your year, the dash communicates over a buss to the PCM and all guages are operated by the PCM.

Also, there are 2 other threads currently running on OBDII Dash issues, you may want to give them a read :)

Ron
 
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