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Erratic Speedometer '88 XJS

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of taking my '88 XJS out of winter hibernation for the first time. We (the car and I) were having a wonderful day driving around the New England countryside when all of a sudden the speedometer stopped working. Then it started again, then it stopped again . My current suspicion is either a short or a loose connection somewhere.

1.. Can anyone tell me where the most likely place to start looking for this loose wire? 2.. If a short, is this indicative of a more serious problem that should keep me from driving the car until I can get it to a mechanic?

Any help would be very appreciated.

Rick Piatt

Reply to
RickPiatt
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Rick

I've just been through the mill with speedometer trouble on my own XJS. There could be a number of possibilities.....

Do you have a computer or cruise control - if they went off too, the signal is failing somewhere towards the sender, if not, the speedometer itself may be playing up and you need to look around the instrument cluster.

If all 3 are playing up, the most likely area for a wiring fault is in the boot/trunk. The signal is generated by a pick up on the differential, which is fed through to the trunk to an electronic signal processing unit. This is located underneath the buttress on the left hand side. check the plug connector/s for dampness and condition.

If there is no fault there, you may be looking at a defective pick up on the differential, which can be expensive.

Hope this helps

Steve

Reply to
Steve Shuttleworth

I agree it's probably the speedo itself. The senders rarely fail, in my experience.

Reply to
Jim McMahon

My thanks to both Steve and Jim for your help! I'll have it checked out soon (I'm not the most mechanically gifted) and hopefully will not spend too huge a fortune on this repair. One question neither of you answered: Am I making the problem worse by driving the car when it's like this? -- could this cause other more serious electrical problems?

Thanks in advance, Rick Piatt

Reply to
RickPiatt

Probably not

Reply to
Steve Shuttleworth

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