J1NX3D

'86 RoW 944.

I feel like an idiot to be at this stage to ask for help.

I was replacing the odometer gear using a rennbay gear and their online tutorial. no problem, quite straight forward. i had typical problems with the e-clips but jewellers tools and tweezers helped. I found the needle quite hard to remove. The tutorial said its on tight but with hand pressure it would slowly give and come off. I was so sure i was going to break it when removing because I had to use much more pressure than I thought I would.

Once off it was straight forward and with cleaning, regreasing, the new gear was in.

I was reassembling tonight and when replacing the needle I noted it wasn't down properly when compared to the tacho needle so I gave it more pressure, noting how hard it was to come off. Snap! I broke the damn thing off.

Is there a way to repair this by replacing the part the needle fits onto or am I looking at a new speedo? if so, can I use the speedo from my '94 968 parts car? it has, at least, got kph on it (its a Japanese import) but its one of those ones with both miles and kilometers on it. Can I cannibalize it for parts to make the 944 one good, or, use my 944 gears and faceplate on it to ensure its working in kph, and then wind it to reflect my correct mileage to use in my 944? The 968 odo reads approx 63,000 km, my 944 odo reads 114,000km.

My main concern is my car is due its 6 monthly road worthiness test. A working speedo is a must and my odometer reading is to be recorded. Much like what you guys can do, my car can be researched electronically (by the number plate) and discrepancies in the mileage isn't looked on favourably at resale.

J1NX3D

I've been lucky. I have a working speedo again.

I emailed this thread to Travis@ Rennbay who couldn't help beyond what I had already thought to try.

I have a spare gauge cluster from my 968 but the friend I had bought it from had swapped out his speedo from his UK import '86 turbo so he could convert the latter to KPH.

I compared both gauges. The turbos face is one of those ones that reads in both MPH and KPH. The circuit boards looked to be the same but there was differences in the gears. Note the turbo odo gear is broken also.

My n/a's on the left, the turbos on the right:




My n/a's on the left, the turbos on the right


I wound the clock to reflect my mileage, reassembled and put on my n/a's KPH gauge face.

Now, I continued with my original repair. I used Acetone (nail polish remover) to clean up the light reflectors them covered them in ali tape.




Reinstalled everything last night and started the car up. All the gauges seem to be working fine, water temp came up as the car heated up and possibly the connector for my oil pressure gauge had been loose as its never worked properly. it always pegged at full but now its starts at 5 bar and drops to about 3 bar at idle when warm. My battery is reading very low at almost 12v. Lower than ever since I first got it mid last year and for it to be that low after 3 days unhooked is really unusual. When it got dark I tested my instrument lights and its a dramatic improvement with the reflectors.

Took the car for a test drive this morning. The conversion has worked and I've guesstimated and set my needle too low. Before, at 100kph I was doing 90 kph actual. Now, when I'm doing 100kph I'm actually doing 110! i better get used to that real quick! NZ cops will ticket me for that.

I've decided that I'll pick up 3 x LED bulbs for those reflectors and adjust the needle again then.

So in conclusion I have no idea why 99% of people would need to convert an MPH gauge to KPH or vice versa on a late 944 but you can and it works fine

PerceptionProblem

I superglued Tinfoil on the underside of my reflectors. . .it was a night and day difference.

mytrplseven

Last month I did a post of re-doing my light reflector units in my dash while replacing my odo gear. I used the shiny aluminum tape that's used by air conditioning duct installations. It's magic. I also used bulbs that were about 1 watt higher than stock and the dash looks like factory new.

J1NX3D

^ i think that might be the same tape we have at work. we call it 100 mph tape and we have it up to 2" wide. The adhesive side is still reflective.

i just pulled my gauges again to adjust my speedo needle and I added these quad LEDs


I have these parts available.

mytrplseven

You're not supposed to have parts left over :+)

J1NX3D

:P

the light from the LED's is very white. I almost prefer the warm glow of the stock bulbs. I may change back unless I find a similar light from an LED.