LazloZ28

In the interest of consolidating this info I found this link posted by HondaPartsHero on another thread. It's very helpful in diagnosing the cause and also goes over calibrating the speedo with the screws and even fixing the vss yourself.
http://techauto.awardspace.com/vss.html

fragmare

Ahh, yes, the old "reflow the solder joints" trick. Works on main relays, speedos, tachs, ECUs... pretty much anything with a green circuit board and soldier joints.

LazloZ28

I can confirm that this worked for me also. I just touched each solder joint on the 2 chips till they melted, just poked the soldering iron through the clear epoxy stuff, didn't bother to remove it and didn't add any solder. I didn't touch up any of the the large joints either as they all looked just fine. It's been working for about 3 weeks now, we'll see how it lasts.

FYI my speedo wasn't stuck at 20 or it never fluctuated strangely, it just simply would work fine sometimes and others not at all, and the odo would quit at the same time as well.

jlaustill

I can verify that this worked for me, at least initially!

I just bought my first honda, a 1992 Civic for 1,000 bones. One of the MANY things that didn't work when I bought it was the speedo, dead as a doornail. Wish I would have found this thread first! After a new VSS and countless hours tracking down shorts, nothing. Then pulled it out and tried this trick and bam, working!

I'll check back in a few weeks with whether it is STILL working or not

UPDATE:

After driving it for a few days, it is working MOST of the time. It stopped working on me once, and has gone BONKERS a couple of times jumping between 20 and 80 really fast. I have a feeling that it's because of the connections between the circuit board and the gauge, the board didn't really "Snap" on and slides off really easy. I think I will take it apart this weekend and clean off those connections and then hold it together with some rubber bands or zipties or some such. I'll report back after that is done and whether it helps or not.

UPDATE 2:
I took it back apart and re-soldiered all of the board points, plus I sanded the pins that connect the board to the rest of the speedo, AND the connections on the cluster where the screws make contacts. Seems to be working now, time will tell...

UPDATE 3:
It worked for a few weeks, but now it's back to only working sporadically. After soldering everything 3 times it's just not work it, so I'll be using my Garmin GPS heads up display from now on and ignoring the speedo lol

yohimbine

In my case (98 Civic ex auto) both the speedo and the tach aren't working. The speedo does the 20 mph thing and the tach is totally dead. Would bad solder joints cause problems with both at the same time? Does the speedometer and tach share some connection that would cause both to fail, or is it just coincidence that they both went out?

yohimbine

Just got back from resoldering my speedo and tach. Speedometer is working great so far, can't believe there was such a simple fix!

theflamingpi

I just tried this fix and it worked perfectly.

However... I left the lights on and drained the battery (accidentally) and required a boost. After the boost, for the rest of the night, the speedometer worked fine. The next day it was wonky for about 30 minutes and then got better again.

However... I left the lights on again and needed another boost (and another brain, apparently). Since then, the speedometer has become less and less frequently reliable. After running the vehicle for about 30 seconds, I can drive about 5 minutes before the speedometer will stop being accurate and start fluttering. After running the vehicle for 30 minutes, it will work for the rest of the day.

There seems to be a connection between the draining of the battery and the fluttering speedometer. As the vehicle runs and has more time to charge the battery, the speedometer seems to be more reliable. However, leaving the vehicle overnight seems to stop this process.

Do you think that replacing the battery would fix my issue? As previously stated, the solder fix worked perfectly until I borked the battery twice.

Thanks.

theflamingpi

After more digging through internet searches, it seems as though resetting the ECU fixed my issue, in conjunction with desoldering the points already described. Thank you for posting this very useful information.

suspendedHatch

I just so happen to have a roommate with your same disability. I converted her key chime warning beep to a headlight warning beep.

Here is what you do. Get a SPST or SPDT Auto relay like those commonly used for car alarms. In fact, I pocket a few every time I'm at the junkyard. I also clip the one-pin brown plugs found in the doors of Civics and Integras that have power windows/locks. These plug in to the option outputs on your under dash fuse box. The last thing you need is the plug harness off the ICU on back of a under dash fuse box. It's not necessary but I prefer to de-pin one of the wires to use so that this mod is easily reversed.

Now you wire the relay like so:
87 to a ring terminal for ground.
87a not used or you can connect your key chime wire to preserve functionality.
30 to the connection at the ICU.
86 to ground (you can loop it to 87).
85 to the parking light option output on your under dash fuse box.

Above the dash fuse box and to the left of where the steering column mounts is an empty threaded hole for a small 10mm bolt. This makes a good ground for your ring terminal and also a mount for your relay (for the ones that have a mounting bracket).

The key chime wire for the ICU is the last pin on the harness. Wire color blue/yellow. De-pin this wire and tape it up, or you can cut it instead. If you de-pin it, pin your junkyard sourced wire into its place.

The parking light option output on an EG is the second from the right. Sometimes you have to put a 10A fuse into #19 to get it to work. Here are pics of the brown plug connector and the option outputs http://www.civic-eg.com/causeforalar...se_box_outputs

I took pics when I did this and I may just turn it into a write-up.

rogerbent

I have a 1995 Civic and the speedometer & odometer would occasionally work. Most of the time not at all. Tricky removing bezel around instruments, though. There's a "secret" screw being the emergency flasher switch! Removed instrument cluster, separated speedometer section by removing 3-screws. These were questionably loose, I thought. I separated meter from circuit board by squeezing the 2-tabs and resoldered all solder connections. I removed the epoxy from the IC-1 & IC-2 terminals by "carving" a ditch with my pencil soldering iron and then used a very small screwdriver to pop it off the entire area. Then I sucked old solder away with a Radio Shack solder sucker and then resoldered everything with fresh solder. I then very lightly burnished screw connections with 400 grit sandpaper. I did the same with the flexible printed circuit board connections. When I stuck everything back together, everything works great! Thank all of you for your ideas and thank you Lord for the positive results!

Steeler

Made an account to confirm this does indeed fix the "stuck at 20 mph" issue. I simply removed the PCB, pried the glue off with a kitchen knife, and touched each of the solder joints until they flowed. I did this to both of the rows covered by the epoxy and several pins surrounding those pins for good measure. I made sure to tighten the PCB screws securely, then reassembled the dash, test drove the vehicle, and was pleasantly surprised to see it working properly.

Thank you to all who posted in this thread. Best of luck to those attempting this repair.