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I had a strange speedometer problem with a simple fix that I thought I'd share. The speedometer on our '92 244 began behaving erratically. First, it would top out at 60 mph. I might have gone month without noticing that problem ;-) but when slowing down, it would stop and freeze at 20 mph. The odometers seemed to work fine.
Well, I pulled the cluster, removed the speedometer, and inspected the unit. Everything looked pristine. Then I noticed what looked to be a small extension spring (roughly 2mm coil diameter, one full loop end, one half loop end) wedged into the mechanism. It was this spring that was interfering with the motion of the needle. But what was the source of this important looking spring? It was identical to the spring retaining the trip odometer reset bar. There even seemed to be a slot where I could hook the new spring. However, installing it doubled the force needed to reset the trip odometer, and we all know how fragile the reset buttons are. Finally, I pulled the speedo from our ’91 244 parts car to do a little comparative geometry.
The mystery spring was from the service engine mechanism. A plastic tab holding it broke and it worked its way down into the speedometer, finally stopping where it interfered with the needle. I disabled the service engine mechanism, replaced the speedometer, installed the cluster, and everything worked fine. As a bonus, I no longer have to reset the service engine light.
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'88 244GL, '89 244GL, '90 244DL, '91 244, '92 244
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