Odometer not working (sort of)

[Pomorza]

Hello all

A few past weekends ago I took a nice long drive up to Phoenix for a Datsun meet. On the way there I noticed that my trip odometer was not really rolling over, it was stuck. Since I don't really use it I though whatever. Well after sometime I noticed that the normal odometer wasn't working either. So I reset the trip odometer and long and behold both worked fine for a while. The trip one got stuck again and...well you get the idea. So here's the question. What exactly can I do to fix the odometer(s). The trip one gets stuck when it rolls over from 9 to 0 and I have to reset it almost daily when I drive. (I like knowing my mileage).

Any help would be great.
Jan

[Zed Head]

Have you had the cable off of the back of the odometer before? It's possible to tighten the tiny screw down enough to make the odometer work sometimes, but without the screw actually being seated in the tiny hole. I had a similar problem,where I couldn't reset the odometer, it just slipped. Once I got the screw seated correctly, it worked fine.

[Pomorza]

Ill take a look this weekend Zed. I'll be down there anyway might as well

[Zed Head]

Good luck! It's a tiny hole and getting the tiny screw in to it requires making your hands tiny to squeeze in to the tiny space available.

But before you loosen anything up: if you can turn the reset knob around rapidly and get good movement from the numbers, its probably set correctly. If you give the knob a quick twist and the numbers don't keep up, it's probably out.

[Pomorza]

Here's what happens.
If I turn the reset knob the numbers all move perfectly fine (1111,2222,3333....9999 and then back to 0000) but when I let it run it'll go for a bit and get stuck again. So I reset the numbers again and so on and so forth. I'll make sure that cable is in there nice and tight. for reference the knob is a pia to turn, I have a blister on my left thumb from doing it so much.

[zbane]

I had similar problems with mine, though it was the trip that wasn't resetting easily. I pulled cluster out of the dash (easier with an s130), opened it up, and found that all it needed was a good cleaning and application of lubricant. Graphite powder worked well-though it can be messy.

[Zed Head]

Just realized a while ago that my suggestion was about the reset cable, but your problem is with recording miles. zbane's probably got the best suggestion.

[Quinn'Z]

clean, lube and tighten. If it's hard for you to turn it's harder for the speedometer cable.