Andein_Vamir

Have a 1994 Honda Accord EX 2.2 VTEC, 5-speed transmission. Recently acquired the car when my other project fell through, and after driving for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes the speedometer will randomly start jumping up and down at random points on the cluster before going to zero. After it goes to zero it will randomly jump around and then return back to zero. I'm thinking it is a VSS but after looking at some other forums might also be the cluster, however those forums show the problem where the speedo would jump around and then stay at 20 instead of zero. Could also be a loose connection, however the problem occurs not on road conditions or weather conditions but a certain time frame.

Edit: Also read the cluster could have an issue so I popped it off and found that towards the bottom left the j18 c72 and j17 are burnt up on the main circuit board. Don't know if that has any effect on it or not

brakedrum

The key is whether the odometer (total miles on car) continues to accrue miles while the speedo and, or tach, are bouncing or sitting at zero. If the odometer continues to roll upwards, you can almost rule out the speed sensor, and focus on the speedo board in the cluster. Like so many of them in old Hondas, the solder joints corrode away over time and lose continuity. It is especially true in hot weather. If your meters work fine until the car gets warm, perhaps take out the dash cluster and have a look. Good to read up on what's involved in getting the gauge out of there. It's possible to mess up these gauges by turning screws and not retorquing them properly, and ending up with a lot of things not working on the cluster. It's a very precision set of instruments.

Andein_Vamir

The odometer still rolls. And it doesn't do it cold. Like I said in my edit there are some blown circuits around the temperature gauge. I'm actually trying to find another cluster on the high likelyhood that's the issue

brakedrum

Almost certainly the solder joints heating up and separating. Mine does it when warm, only on mine (tach and speed) drop completely to ZERO after bouncing once or twice. It's a used cluster. I think most of the clusters pushing 30-years old have some sort of issue. Either capacitors failed that keep certain lights from coming on, or going off, or the solder joints that separate when warm enough and have no continuity until cooler. On my original cluster, when I finally got it out, I discovered that a capacitor had literally caught fire and burned a small section of the circuit board. At the time, only my temperature gauge had stopped working.

Some have reported being about to take out the board for the speedometer and re-solder the joints, but for me it's too much to go through on this old car. I just drive it by feel when the gauge stops working. If the speedo kicks back in while I'm driving, I'm always within a few MPH of what I thought I was doing.

Andein_Vamir

So I figured out the problem. As was stated it was the cluster. So far it's been reading steady without any issues. I replaced everything in the cluster minus the speedo unit because I wanted to keep my odometer. Been working since