I am losing my sanity, PLEASE HELP!

[TheSalad]

I replaced my instrument cluster tonight hoping to fix my speedometer. Just a note, sometimes my speedo would work, other times it would just read zero, other times it would read 90 when going 70. The odometer has always worked.

I took out my stock cluster, and replaced the RPM/Speedo section with the same part out of the new one. I put it all back together and threw it in and went for a drive.

The speedometer worked great, but the trip/odometer wasn't working. My first thought was that maybe the motor that spins those components was broken, so I took the motor of my old speedo/rpm gauge and put it on, threw it all back in, and went for a drive.

Same thing, speedo worked great, but the trip/odometer wouldn't spin. So, I thought maybe the gears in it were stuck, so I played around with them gently, adding miles to each to see if one was more stiff than the other. They seemed about the same. At this point, since they were about the same I threw the new odometer back onto the speedo/rpm gauge, and plugged it in and went for a drive.

The car wouldn't start. Battery was good, but I just couldn't get it to turn over. I also got a P0320 code at this point. The check engine light wasn't on, but it read the code. I had been using the same "white part" of the instrument cluster this whole time. As I began to doubt my sanity, I assembled the parts from the other cluster and replaced it. So again, this is the new white part, old speedo/rpm gauge, and tried to start the car thinking it was maybe some anti-theft thing going on. Car started up. It was running rough, but I wanted to see if the odometer and speedo would work, but I got out into the street and the car died and wouldn't start again. Once back in the garage, I tried to start it again and it started, ran for about 15 seconds then died.

What the hell is going on?

 

[TheSalad]

My sanity is still long gone, but I fixed the issue.

It turns out that the harness on my crankshaft position sensor is a little broken, and the wires were barely in there. That explains why the car seems to begin to run like crap after hitting decent sized bumps as well as whenever it wants, based on the crappy connection between the wires and the sensor. I tightened up the wires into the harness and made sure they made good contact and everything started up fine.

Also, I was able to use the mix and matched parts from both clusters, and both of them work, so I am not really sure what PATS the 96 has. So, my speedo is working, my odometer is working, and my car starts when I want it to.

 

[Pearl02]

Glad you found the problem. I curious as to why your trip/odometer started work after the repairs made to the cps wires. Pearl02.

 

[TheSalad]

Well, technically it didn't. Remember, on my old cluster, the odometer worked just fine, it had a bad speedo. On the new one, the speedo worked fine, but the odometer didn't work.

The funny thing is, after all of this, I tested both clusters that have parts mixed and matched from each other, and my speedo (the one that didn't use to work) was working fine. This might be just one of those moments that it works, but who knows. It read mph from 5-25 where it has almost never worked.