1998 S70 NT Dancing Gauge Needles w Video

neklund30 · Post by **neklund30** » 23 Sep 2014, 17:37

I have an interesting problem. My gauge needles start dancing across my dashboard when my car is in motion. They settle down after 10 minutes or so. I have no idea if this is an electrical problem or something with my ECT sensor. It usually goes haywire when I start the car when it is hot outside.

I linked the video to show what the needles are doing.

Thanks a bunch

Nick Eklund

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 23 Sep 2014, 18:16

That's wild. My guess is a bad ground since they are all going nuts but I suppose it could be a cluster problem as well.

...Lee

Post by **abscate** » 24 Sep 2014, 04:42

Bad ground. The speedo and the tach are getting inputs from different places, so either they share a common ground or there is a bad connector to the cluster

Post by **jblackburn** » 24 Sep 2014, 14:12

I'm thinking bad connection at or in the cluster. The grounds that these share with other things would make...well, other things...go crazy.

What's the CEL for? Speed sensor or crank sensor by any chance?

neklund30 · Post by **neklund30** » 25 Sep 2014, 17:45

Hi Blackburn,

What does CEL mean? I have the check engine light on and I check saying it was a evap gross leak but it could just be the gas cap problem. Where is the ground located inside the instrument panel?

Thanks

Nick

neklund30 · Post by **neklund30** » 25 Sep 2014, 17:48

I just got the abbreviation right after I posted my reply. Doh! I have a code reader and the only code that came up was the evap one. How hard is it to fix the ground inside the instrument panel?

Thanks

Nick

Post by **jblackburn** » 25 Sep 2014, 19:22

Lee or abscate could tell you where it's grounded. I was only saying that I think a shared common ground between the RPM/ABS/speed sensors would freak other things out and throw codes rather than just having the instrument cluster go haywire. When one of my speed sensors was giving a flaky resistance, the car turned on the ABS/tracs off lights.

I was curious about the check engine light to see if it was any code that might be related to one of these two sensors, but if it's just an EVAP code, don't worry about that for now.

I'm thinking it's a bad connection at one of the 2 plugs in the back of the instrument cluster or a bad solder connection on the pins inside.