Hey everyone. Thanks ahead of time for any answers to this issue. It's not terribly annoying but it's a little quirky.

When my '88 244 is cold in the morning, the speedometer works perfectly for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, it drops to zero and stays there until I park the car and come back later. In colder weather, the speedo will run for longer amounts of time before giving it up but in hot weather, it often doesn't last for more than 30 seconds of drive time. I say that it hasn't been all that annoying because my GPS keeps track of my speed as well, but HEY... I'd like for the poor old speedo to work again. lol

The car has over 400k and the odometer doesn't work either. But I know about that and I've ordered the gear from IPD.

 

When you replace the gear, look the circuit boards over on the speedo for cold solders. It could be the the main driver chip (ITT xxx er somthing) it dying. Then when you get it back together, observe the functionality of the speedo vs the odometer. that may give us some clues. Also, unplugging and plugging everything back together may help make connections when you have it out for repair.

 

That's a good idea. I will do that and I thank you because I wouldn't have thought of that. Is there any way of verifying/checking that main circuit chip? In fact, is it even removable? If it is, I could swap it for one from my other 240 just to see. Of course, that may sound a little extreme because I would have to remove the instrument cluster on a perfectly good car. Maybe that isn't such a good idea.

 

The ITT chip is soldered to the circuit board so you need a decent soldering station to replace it. I have replaced one on my car but that was to fix my cruise control. In general, I don't think they go bad very often unless you hook up the instrument cluster wires incorrectly which is what happened to me.

Like Joe said, check for cold solder joints when you have it apart and touch up any questionable ones. Also, clean all connections to the cluster and see if that makes any difference.

 

Do you know where to get one of those chips?

 

I got mine from a cluster I pulled from a junkyard. I was planning to use the whole circuit board but apparently the cluster I pulled was from a car with ABS and the circuit board is different for ABS cars.

However, I did find a source on the internet from china. The chip is UAF 2115 and is made by ITT. If you google it you should be able to find one. Also, over on Brickboard, Art Benstein actually offered to ship me one as it seems he had a spare.

 

OMGoodness!! Using your information, I found the chip on ebay for $1.49. I don't know if I'm going to be able to afford that. Maybe I should just buy a new Toyota. lol

Heck, for that price it's worth it just to pop out the old, put in the new and see what happens. That would be GREAT if that's all it was. But since I need to fix the odometer anyway, I will still check the all the solder joints.

Thanks everyone. You people are GREEEEAAAAT!

 

Cool. I could not find that.