Hi friends,
This is my first post so please forgive me if it's off base.

A few months ago I purchased my first 240 and I love it.
I've been trying to go through and fix my odometer and clock which do not work nor have they worked for sometime. The title said the same mileage when I got it changed to my name as it did when the guy who had it before me got it titled.
I've replace the drive gear, speedo and now whole cluster but still nothing. Also the clock doesn't work.
I'm wondering if it's electrical?
There's a small female shovel plug near the bottom right corner of the speedo on the pcb between the speedo and clock. It's above the oil light. My girl friend has a 91 245 m47 and the same shovel plug on hers has a wire running to it.
I don't know. I've learned so much from this car in the past few months it's been great. But it would be nice to know what mpg I'm getting or what time it is haha
Thanks for any help and replies.
Cheers

 

I took a look at a cluster I had laying around. I think it was out of a '91 or '92. I traced the female lug and it looks like it drives the check engine lamp. I don't think your '86 has a check engine light as I believe that came with the LH2.4 fuel injection starting in '89.

As far as the clock not working, there are two wires on the back - one that is clearly marked 12v. Check to see if you have power to it. If not, trace back on the circuit board to see where it runs. The circuit boards for these clusters are single layer pubs and therefore easy to trace.

For your odometer, it is driven by a little electric motor. Check the solder joints where the wires to the motor connect to the speedometer circuit board. They have a tendency to crack causing intermittent connections. You can reflow them using a soldering iron. Also, if you replaced the odometer gear, take care to clean out any broken teeth that may have lodged on any of the other gears as they can jam the whole works.

Check out this page as it has a nice write up on how to bench test the speedometer/odometer:

http://cleanflametrap.com/speedo.html

 

Ok awesome. So a check engine light. That makes sense because my girlfriends 91 240 has a wire run to it and does have a check engine light.

My clock started working the other day! But only ran a few hours then stopped again. It's done that a few times now. I don't understand it.

I'm kind of scared to solder iron on that board again. I tried soldering the wires to that electric motor on my last speedo and when i took it down the street to test it, smoke, terrible burnt wire smell and a blown speedo board. I think the ground came looks somehow when I was reattaching the board to the bracket.

 

Yikes! A terrible burnt wire smell? I would pull the cluster and examine all of the wires that connect to it. Look for burnt/melted insulation. That may be the cause of some of your issues. I believe the power to the instrument cluster comes in through the speedo board. It feeds the main power board through that u-shaped wire that plugs in the back of the speedometer. I would check the power wire feeding into the speedometer to make sure it hasn't melted and feeding power to other wires.

 

Congratulations, welcome to the club!

From my experience, pretty much every Odometer goes bad right at 150k mi or so. I've heard, as the second poster said, that a small plastic gear is the problem and this can be replaced relatively easily for about $30 of parts. Mine hasnt worked since I've owned it.

As far as gas milage goes, I believe the average for a sedan is 28mpg/hwy and 22mpg/city though I'd say mine is a little worse.

hope this helps.

 

Mine died out at 243K miles. A used cluster was a lot cheaper for me ($20).
Wildfire - try to not make duplicate threads.

Here's the original thread - https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...r-clock-77548/

 

I've had European VDO style odometers fail at 250k miles, and at 58k miles (a $#@$#@2 22 year old Mercedes 300E). I think its more a function of age and how brittle the plastics get due to where the car is stored (garaged vs outdoors). the trip meter reset button puts a lot of stress on old bits of plastic, its a source of breakage.

 

Yes the more times you reset the trip meter - it's going to fail quicker. Also, if you press the trip button while driving it's going to break the button off too.