Following Eric's advice, I pulled the speedo unit from the cluster and cleaned the pins and their sockets. I also cleaned the recepticle for the impulse wires' plug. I reconnected everything, and placed the cluster on top of the 'shelf' of the steering column. Worked fine...that is, the service light and the speedo/odo were both lit/functioning. So, parked at a traffic redlight, I slowly eased the cluster into the dash. Service light goes out. I accelerate, the speedo/odo aren't working. So I pull the cluster back out, service light goes on, speedo/odo drop work. Push it back in, both don't function. It seems that if the cluster is being squashed a bit (to get it under the dash overhang and into its dashboard recepticle, they shut down. Might that be bad soldering, such as Rene suggested? Daylight is failing, so I've got the cluster pulled out and I'm going to reflow all the solder joints related to the speedo/odo head plus the service light function. Again, tach, gas, and temp gauges all operate just fine.

One last question -- my speedo unit has a black lever poking out its back -- it's designed to lift up. When I had the speedo head off earlier this afternoon, I could see it rocked, had a spring load, and it seemingly disengauged a sprocket gear from a snail gear. Bentley says nothing about this -- no pictures, no text mention. Anyone know what this lever does? Any harm in lifting it up? (I'm dying to give it a try!)

Update tomorrow...

Rob Kuhlman