Drop-dead Speedo & Tach

'93 XJ, 4.0L HO, Auto.

Whenever I set out to drive my Cherokee in the morning, the Speedo
and Tach needles will occasionally simultaneously drop dead and flicker.

The other guages on the cluster are OK.

After 3-5 miles, everything becomes A-OK once the car warms up (engine-wise, and/or from being more exposed to the heat of the day).

I'm thinking that there must be a "marginal" electrical contact, somewhere,
that is made better by heat expansion.

I've taken out the cluster and cleaned all the screw terminals on the printed
ribbon circuit, and cleaned the cable connector - but that didn't do anything.

Is there another cable connector somewhere along the harness that I should
also be looking for?

Failing everything else, I'm thinking of swabbing a thin smear of dielectric
grease along the pins of the cable connector on the back of the instrument
cluster. Anybody got any thoughts on this?

Thanks y'all.

I did that with my 98's idiot light cluster and it pretty much stopped acting up but I also cleaned and tweaked the self docking pins a hair. When I swapped in the full gauge cluster back in jan or so I did the same thing, just a dab of dielectric and put it back together. Only problem I have now is the stupid fuel pump sender sending the wrong levels or no level at all but I'm not going to replace a perfectly good fuel pump... I live by my trip odometer..

Im having the same symptoms on my '99. The speedo & tach die all of a sudden and the ABS light comes on. Goes away by itself. I guess I'll try dielectric grease.

Anyone else have this problem?

I think I read a bad ground under the dash can cause this. Try doing a search on "ground and maybe dash"

JoBo

Same thing happened to me when I broke one of the engine grounds off- speedo and tach went dead- look at that and make sure its tight.

after i put my lift in i had the same problem changed the vss on the t case and it was all set

Blazair said:

Im having the same symptoms on my '99. The speedo & tach die all of a sudden and the ABS light comes on. Goes away by itself. I guess I'll try dielectric grease.

Anyone else have this problem?

Click to expand...

Same problem with my 98 today coming home from work...both the tach and the speedo dropped and the airbag light came on....a few minutes down the highway I hit a few bumps and the gauges started reading and the light shut off and its been good since....is there a fix for this? Or what is the cause for this?

try the electrical grease 1st if it works good
if not the wrg patch is 12.00 cdn
part #05016261aa
takes about 1.0 to do repair

try the electrical grease
if it works fine if not the wrg patch is 12.00 cnd
part #05016261aa

muddyjeep1997 said:

try the electrical grease
if it works fine if not the wrg patch is 12.00 cnd
part #05016261aa

Click to expand...

Will do...just hope this doesnt happen to often as the weather isnt the greatest to be working outside. Thanks for the help.

My speedo and tach also are dropping every so often, seems to be getting more often. My engine light also comes on and I get a "no bus" message where I should have my odometer (it is digital in my 2000).

Any idea what I should do here? Has anyone had the "no bus" error before?

Thanks,

Eric

in my 92 it was the vss or the speedo sensor at the t case think it was 40 bucks at napa