1995 850 Turbo Odometer Broken

ARMeyer27 · Post by **ARMeyer27** » 09 Dec 2014, 10:37

long story short, i bought a 95 850 Turbo from a towing yard auction, and the odometer had stopped at 153k, I had researched the gear issue and assumed that was the problem.

I was at my local pick a part and found another 850, this one a Non-Turbo, with 74k miles on it, so i took the dash apart and checked the gears, not broken. Score! (I thought)

I went home and installed the new gears, but no luck. It still doesn't work! what could be wrong?

a few notes about the install:
1. My original gears - The small gear had 2 broken teeth, it was also orange in color and positioned with the small gears lip-spacer facing outwards, towards the motor.
2. The new gears - No breaks on any of the teeth, same teeth count, The small gear is white in color and was positioned with the lip-spacer facing inwards, against the larger gear.
3. My digital trip meter has always been wacky, reporting mile count almost as if its reporting feet. It increases insanely fast.

I tried it both ways, flipping the gear over and neither one worked, The cars computer reports 171k miles so i did wind the odometer forward, but im almost certain that did not break anything. Could the fact that its not working still, and the trip meter reporting huge mile counts very fast be a sign that the cluster itself has a problem? All other gauges and lights work correctly. Pleaseeeee help!

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 09 Dec 2014, 17:50

The digital display problem is a new one. I haven't heard of your particular problem before unless the rate at which it increases mileage was somewhat exaggerated. There is programming that converts the cluster from miles to km but typically the speedometer is paired with the distance rate. If the digital display programming was tallying km instead of miles the conversion rate would be about 1.6:1.

There are a couple of variations on the way the stepper motor plugs into the main instrument cluster PC board. One style has a pigtail from the stepper motor to a socket on the main board and the other (later) style has the stepper motor assembly mounted onto a daughter board that plugs into pins that extend from the main board. I have had trouble with the connections on the later style after repairing the gear but I have always been able to make it work by taking the cluster apart again and using more force to seat the daughter board.

The factory manual has some pretty decent diagnostic tests for the instrument cluster that are performed through the A / B DTC boxes under the hood. If you don't have the manual it can be downloaded from here:

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/downlo ... vo_850.zip

After you unzip the manual, see the file named instrument panel.pdf.

...Lee

ARMeyer27 · Post by **ARMeyer27** » 09 Dec 2014, 18:03

mine is the later style with the pins extending from the main board, i am pretty sure they are connected and making contact but i will try it again and use a little more force and let you know.

The digital trip meter is defiantly not counting km it will add up to over a thousand (would be miles) in less than 1 mile of driving, its very quick to count.

Thank you very much for the response, i will post back with results of trying more force.

Post by **Volvofan94** » 09 Dec 2014, 18:46

My digital trip meter has always been wacky, reporting mile count almost as if its reporting feet. It increases insanely fast.

My NA 94 850 didn't have the digital trip computer, outside temp sensor, and INFO switch so I added them from my local pick and pull. It worked great until a few months later it started to behave in a similar fashion as yours is. It also recorded very low average fuel mileage (never went above 12mpg). I remember an error code was stored in the cluster's ECU. You can check yours by opening the hood and going to the OBD 1 port and seeing if there are any codes stored in A7 (for the combined instrument cluster).

I gave up on troubleshooting because a few weeks after the issue appeared I bought my Turbo 850. Sold the car with the problem.

But I would see if there are codes stored in port A7. If there are codes go ahead and clear them. Maybe it will return to normal; if not I'm guessing a replacement trip computer may be needed.

Good luck!

Post by **erikv11** » 09 Dec 2014, 19:31

Anytime you reset the trip computer, like the first mile is ticked off in meters. So the cluster has that function built in.

Clusters are cheap from the yard, do you have the one from the 94? Trip computers are also cheap, though you have to look harder for them. I would just replace the whole thing if clearing the codes doesn't solve it.

ARMeyer27 · Post by **ARMeyer27** » 17 Dec 2014, 12:57

Sorry it took so long to get back to this, My dad was visiting me from the Philippines (his idea of retirement. fucker.) and naturally i wanted to spend time with him.

Bad news, I took apart the cluster again and cleaned off the pins / contacts on the stepper motor board, but no luck, it is definitely seated all the way down and tight, but there is no miles being ticked on the rollers

Good news, the digital trip computer does seem to be working correctly. After 2 miles it started to count miles instead of meters, thank you very much for that info

the car is not legal to drive yet so i had never taken it much further than around the block.

any other ideas? do i need a new cluster?