umarwarrior

i have a Honda Civic 2004 lxi
the meter works sometimes and dosent work other times
when it work , it works perfect
when it dosent nothing work
all the gages become dead

i tried everything
the problem was with the meter itself
saw ur suggestion for resolding
did that , got no luck

opened the meter connected it with car
switched on
and step by step tried pressing the motherboard of speedometer from diff point
finally located the exact area which had bad soldering or somehing
resoldered everything but still wasnt perfect
so i finally placed a packing between motherboar's that area and cover
so a pressure would be constantly be applied
it worked
its good now
i am happy finally
Alhamdulilah

KnightmareCS

Did the reflow fix.

Seemed to work so far. Figured I'd add in my pics.

I used this bernzomatic torch with the pen tip. A real soldering iron with a pointy tip would be better, but this is all I had.



Took apart the dash to get to the cluster.

Great writeup here:
http://www.superhonda.com/forum/f94/...-420kb-274853/

Separated the white and the black parts of the cluster:



Unscrewed the speedometer gauge (look at the tutorial above to see which screws).

Popped off the Speedo PCB:



Then I proceeded to reflow some of the joints. To do this, I just touched the tip of the iron on the join and held it till the joint got liquidy. I also fed in some thin solder I had, you might not need to, I just did it cause I had it lying around.

You can see in the pics some of the ones I touched up. If you look at the speedo, you can see 4 pins in a row (2 and 2), I focused on the points where they pin into on the PCB.

I'm pretty sure it is these 4:



If you're pretty good with it, touch up anyones that you can. I did, so I'm not sure if touching just those 4 would fix it. Any ones that were reachable, I did. Didn't touch any that had glue around them.

Hope this helps someone.

jbpnoman

umarwarrior, this is the 92-00 section. You're talking about an 04.

John Galt

Thanks VXer. Great pics! The parts all look the same as my 92.

silasthemac

Thank you for the write up

KnightmareCS

Welcome !

rfdean

My speedo would go to 20mph and then just wiggle there. I did just what was suggested in this thread and it worked.

So, don't worry about removing the glue gunk on the circuit board, at least in my case, it seems to be one of the other little pins that caused my problem.

revoapparel

Can someone help me? I am trying to reflow the pins but since this is coming from a 2000 speedometer, it looks a tad bit different than the picture above posted by Knightmare, which is an earlier model.

Which pins should I reflow that connects to the PCB?

Axatax

EX manual cluster:

Both my tach and speedo stick on the peg until I get up around 20 MPH, then they both jump instantly to the proper RPM/speed.

I've swapped out the tach with a known good unit, and it does the same thing. Also replaced the flexible circuit board on the back of the cluster with a brand-new OEM part, same deal.

VSS and tach signal both test good with a DMM so this is somewhat of a mystery.

revoapparel

Just tried the resoldering the PCB and it solved all my problems too! Appreciate all the help guys. Just saved me $50 from having to buy another speedometer.

BTW - I just had a friend re-touch all the pins so I don't quite know which ones exactly for the 1996-2000 but alas, the problem has been solved.

fragmare

Interesting, I'll need to try this. I recently resoldered my main relay and it fixed an intermittent starting problem. Sometimes my speedometer will act erratic or stick at 0MPH or 100MPH, but if I tap it, it'll start working again. Sounds a bit too much like intermittent solder connections to not give this a try. Nice write-up!

x95civicb16

Just curious, did any of you guys get CEL code 17 for the VSS? That's what I have and I checked the wiring from the VSS to the cluster and its great. I also tried another used VSS. Could be I had two bad VSS's or my Speedometer gauge is crap. Speedo and Odom do not work ever. Previous owner said it worked intermittently then just stopped.

John Galt

There was no CEL and I did not check for any codes, but I did trace the VSS to the gauge (I'm pretty sure I just used a digital voltmeter) and determined the signal made it that far. From this I concluded the speedometer was NG. As I recall the tach continued to work, so you may in fact have another bad VSS.

See if you can measure a signal from it.

x95civicb16

Well, I bought another bran VSS. Bran new VSS and still no fix. I am lead to believe that the speedometer has to be the problem. Still a bit confused since it throws a CEL 17 code. And the wires all have great continuity.

supermanwithhea

I'm up for a smog check and i have this issue. I'm gonna check everthing and hopefully i can sort it out

thanks for the info guys

fragmare

Yea, I did the same thing as the OP. My speedo would intermittently not work and stick at 0 or 100. If I tapped the cluster, it would start working again. Tell tale sign of bad solder joints. I resoldered the entire speedo circuit board and havent' had any problems since. The same fix I used for the Main Relay.

x95civicb16

Ok, so I have done everything I can do I think. New VSS, checked continuity on wire for opens or shorts, re soldered all the pins on the speedometer. I have two last options I think. I do not like the connector on the VSS. It is loose and does not clip firmly. I'm going to cut one off a car at the wrecking yard, then solder it back on to mine. If that does not fix the issue, I'm afraid that the speedometer is crap and in need of a new one.

With that being said, speedometer for sale anyone?

steve773

I used to design digital instrument clusters for 85 Chrysler LeBaron, but customers didn't like digital clusters. The pulse signals from VSS must be converted to current which deflects the needle proportional to number of pulses arriving at the Integrated Circuit or processor. There are, I'm sure, multiple causes of failure since the pointing needle is mechanical in nature, solder cracks just one among them. I thing that there must be springs and dampers associated with the speedometer needle since it should reject vibrations.

randomtask77

Sorry for bumping this up, but wanted to say that this thread helped immensely with both the VSS replacement and the physical gauge cluster fix.

Very helpful!! Thanks to those who have contributed with their info!!

steve773

My root cause problem was a loose speedometer pointer needle not coupled tightly to the shaft. E-poxying would have solved this but I purchased a replacement instrument cluster on EBAY and installed it. It works fine now.

TOOLMAN1966

I had the Speedometer indicating 20mph and Odometer not working problem, half the time. The other half it worked perfectly. Mine is a 1998 Civic EX. My problem was a broken solder connection (often called a "cold solder joint") on IC1 pin 10. My circuit board is the one pictured by REVOAPPAREL in this thread on 8-15-2012. This pin is one of the epoxy (or glued) pins. I used the soldering iron to remove this epoxy from the pin before re-soldering it. (The heat kind of crumples the epoxy so it can be scraped off with the iron tip.) The Vehicle Speed Sensor signal comes into IC1 on this pin, but also on IC1 pin 12, and IC2 pins 10 and 15. __ I found which solder connection was broken in the following manner: Removed the circuit board from the speedometer/odometer mechanism (it pulls right off.) Attached a 12 volt power supply to IGN and GND. Used a voltmeter to read COS & SIN voltages. These 2 voltages tell the speedometer needle where to point. (RED voltmeter lead on COS+ and BLACK voltmeter lead on COS-.) (Don't look at the voltages with respect to GND. The speedometer doesn't see that.) When the circuit board was working correctly, the COS voltage was 5.04 and the SIN voltage was 0.26. These are logic levels ONE and ZERO. (If you remember your Trigonometry, the COS of zero is ONE and the SIN of zero is ZERO. Zero is the vehicle speed.) When the circuit board wasn't working correctly (this is when the needle would indicate 20mph IF it was attached) COS voltage was 2.47 and SIN voltage was 1.80. When I read these WRONG voltages, I started touching things and when I pushed on IC1 the voltages became correct for a moment. Then I used a probe to push against each IC1 pin individually and found pin 10 was the pin not making contact. __ A person should be able to use this technique to find a bad solder joint anywhere on the board causing incorrect speedometer readings when the vehicle is sitting still. ___ I also traced out the entire circuit board and drew a schematic. Apparently the rules are not letting me post it as an attachment. ___This is my first post to any automotive thread. I sincerely hope this helps many of you out with your speedometer indicating 20mph problems! Enjoy Troubleshooting! ((Toolman1966 _ APRIL 14, 2013))

zekobi

TOOLMAN1966, thank you for your very detailed troubleshooting info. I had your same symptoms (intermittent speedometer stuck at 20 mph and odometer not working) on my 2000 Civic EX. I followed your instructions and found that the exact same pin was the culprit on my board. I re-soldered it and everything is working perfectly. Yay!

I bet your schematic would be very useful to people. If you can't upload it here, maybe you could upload it to imgur.com and post the link?

My speedometer had been doing this intermittently for around 3 years, so it is awesome to have it working. Thanks again!

ClutchPapi

Can you just change the cluster all together ? Is that better and easier ?

zekobi

I've read that it is getting difficult to find these parts in working condition. The replacement part will likely develop the same problem. Personally, I prefer to keep my original part that I know the history of and is now in perfect working condition and unlikely to have that problem again. Why waste a part that is so easily repairable? Swapping speedo gauges will get you a completely different odometer reading as well which I prefer not to deal with.

Following TOOLMAN1966's instructions, it took me less than an hour for dis-assembly, diagnosis, repair, and re-assembly. I wouldn't have been doing any money-earning activity during that time, so my repair was _free_ compared to the cost of a replacement part (and possibly multiple hours to find one).

Others will of course have different preferences and may not have the skills and tools (multimeter, soldering iron) on hand to perform this repair. I'm glad the info is here on how to fix it for those who prefer this solution.

LazloZ28

On mine the symptoms are a little different. Speedo works fine then it drops all the way to zero and odo stops as well, occasionally it will come back on and work fine, mine does not stop at 20 or go to 100. There is no vss code and auto transmission seems to work perfectly. I'm assuming this means the vss is ok and the problem must be in the cluster or is that not accurate? Does the vss signal go to pcm first or straight to the cluster? Can a bad vss cause this but not throw a code on obd2? Also found a common issue with the wring under the intake manifold but seems that would be the same as a bad vss right?