Hello all I seem to have a serious problem with my old 1992 Volvo 240. First it all started with a NO instrument back lighting at all I had ordered new bulbs but found out the dealer ordered the wrong ones. So when I pulled out the cluster a job that I have done a dozen times on various 240's for some reason the "L" shaped connector broke off part of the circuit board on my speedometer cluster. I had a spare cluster out of a 90 240 so I swapped that. Speedometer did not work at all then. I noted on the top portion of my speedometer there are differences in the pin configuration. One has 3 pins the other has 4. So I did some soldering and swapping from the broken 4 pin to the ok 3 pin speedo. Now the car will not start. Like the fuel pump is not getting power. Major bummer. All the inst lights work, but the car will not start. So...I guess I have to find a replacement 4 pin small circut board for my original speedo, correct? is there a place I can order one as the local junk yards no longer have any 240 Volvo's at all!
Thanks and God bless.

 

I don't believe this car needs a speedometer or a cluster in order to start. Check your fuses, you might have blown one when you were dealing with the cluster...

 

it needs the alternator light in the instrument cluster, or the alternator probably won't charge the battery...

 

I checked the fuses and they all appear to be good. The car ran and drove just fine before I pulled the instrument cluster out and somehow broke that small piece of the PCB off. I never even touched anything under the hood either.

 

Well, you can start this car with no cluster in place. Yes, the alternator may not charge without the BAT light going ON then OFF, but apart from that the car should start with a charged battery present.



What does it do? Cranks? Or nothing?

 

Well I didn't know the car would run without the inst cluster so I pulled it out and tried to start the car and it fired right up. So I then tried reverse logic hooking up each wire just to see what would happen. All went great until I hooked up the tach wire and then the car died imeaditaly. So I pulled it off and tried another contact point and the tach works and the car stayed running, the only wire I did not get hooked up was the ABS wire. I took it for a short test drive and the speedo is still dead. Bummer.....Any ideas there? Thank you for the tip about the car starting with the cluster removed.

 

240 are notorious for bad speedos. Could be the gear, or the capacitors, or... See Dave Barton's Volvo page, great info there. Davebarton.com

 

Well it did work UNTIL I broke off that piece of the circuit board where the "L" shaped plug attached as stated I solder on the PCB board from the '90 model speedo. I think that is the problem. Anyway I do have good gears in it I took that apart and checked. I have had to do gear fixes on two other Volvo's I have had.

 

If it cannot be repaired, then you need a new CB...

 

i would only replace the main circuit board on a speedo if it looked /identical/, otherwise, I would replace the whole speedo as a unit. Its been too long since I took a 240 dash apart, but on many cars, you can swap the speedometer out of the back of the instrument cluster.

 

It will be fun finding a decent circuit board since these cars are, at a minimum, 25 years old now.

 

hey man If you are still having this problem I can check the Junk yards around and see if I can find one in good shape or one that hasn't already been taken out