The odometer on my 1997 F150 has completely quit, what should i do/look for?
Also I'm unsure if its related but the speedometer sometimes quits as well

 

Your cable is loose or broke.

 

cool could you help me out and send me photos of both ends of the cable, and im gonna hope that a ford dealer could read the computer and correct my mileage?

 

The computer in the 97 dose not keep a mileage record. I dont have pictures but its the common old time speedometer cable. undo it at the trans and behind the gauge cluster snake it out snake in the new one.. reattach..

 

have you taken the cluster panel out yet? it could have just come out of the back of the panel, had that happen on a little ranger. stuck it back in there w/ a new little clip and she was good to go.

 

AFAIK, the 97-98's use a VSS gear at the trans end. This is a little electroninc gizmo and the only connection to the dash is thru the wire harness??

I've had my dash cluster out to replace some bulbs and there was no 'cable' connected to it.

This is the VSS. Yes, it's very, very dirty... But it's still working!



Mitch

 

^ Ah. Good to know.

 

i really hate too but could u point out in the pick exactly which part it is, all this is made more difficult because the truck is at home and im at school but I'm not familiar with any of those connections, my knowledge comes from what i read and what im taught.
I normally only tinker with intakes, leds and sound systems

 

It's the part with the little nut coming out the side of the tail shaft of the trans. (upper portion of the pic)

Only a wire harness is attached to it. No cable.

Removing that nut will let you take out the VSS. On it is a plastic gear and that's what drives an electronic signal to the cluster. The cluster is what rolls the odo and the speedo needle. Not sure how all that part works, but since it's an analog odo, there has to be something in the cluster that turns it?

 

so yours is disconnected in the pic? the auto parts store told me this was all one cable, the speedo and that is a gear inside the gauge cluster that goes, bad it seemed a little off to me

 

No, not at all. It has not been disconnected since I swapped out the VSS gear (the littel plastic one inside) when I went to larger size tires and had to recalibrate my speedo/odo about 10 years ago. I got the part from the Ford Parts counter (the gear)... The auto parts guy had no clue what I was asking about when I wanted a new VSS gear!

Maybe in '96 they had a cable.. 97 was a brand new truck, so no cable on mine at any rate..

Mitch

 

i think im having trouble distinguishing whats what from a picture, i wanna be laying under my truck with a flash light right now

 

ignore the 'blue' gizmo in the pic. The VSS is the part at the top of the pic. The wire harness is the "Ski Cap" looking thing. It's only a wire harness. No cable that turns a mechanical speedo/odo in the dash cluster.

Mitch

 

thanks for your patience i was looking at that and trying to distinguish if it was connected, i was ignoring the blue tho

so im assuming first step is to pull the cluster out and make sure its not disconnected and then look at getting a vss? any guess as to what the cost on that is?

 

No idea on cost or availability on the VSS. I still can get parts at Ford for my 97, so they are probably still on the books.

On the cluster, I think there was only a single harness that was plugged in on the back of it? It was a number of years ago when I pulled it out last and just don't remember... Sorry..

Good luck with it at any rate!

Mitch