Thread: 92' SE-R speedo issue

have a cable driven SE-R, the speedo will work every great once in a while but most of the time its dead, my question is, if the cable is broken, will it never work, or is there a possibility it will catch and work for a minute or so?

the end on the trans is tight, but havent checked the speedo cluster for tightness yet

Also, is there a way to convert to electric, or will i have to swap harnesses and everything?

The issue could be internal to the cluster, the rotational damper or gears or something not engaging. You can convert it, but you will probably have to go to an NX1600 digital cluster.

I would rather not do that, its my cousins car and im just fixing the issue if i could with as little bit as possible, so i was just checking my options, ill have to pull the speedo out and see if the gear is spinning from the trans or if the gear is messed up in there, since the trans is kind of junk anyways

You can convert without too much hassle.

I think a b14 cluster works too so you may have more options... Though chances are that it's just the cable. I had the gears bind on the odometer and it didn't effect the speedometer. Not too much that cAn go wrong with it other than the cable.

About the cable it can definitely be intermittent. The physical cable can spin freely in the end attached to the transmission as that part is crimped on and fails. If the cable is loose it will begin to fray eventually catching and making the speedometer work then dislodge and make it stop working. They are like 40 for oem from courtesy Nissan. If that fails to fix your problem you can always sell it as they go quite regularly and I'm sure another forum member would buy it

When my '91 SE-R lost its speedometer function last year, I looked under the hood and noticed transmission fluid around where it engages in the speedometer pinion / transmission. Took the cable out of the pinion, reinstalled and tightened it up. It worked for about a half-mile before stopping again. When I got home, I took the cable out again and noticed that the "tooth" that engages the pinion had rounded off. That would be a good thing to check before doing any cluster work - for me it was just a new cable and everything was right as rain.

OP, does the odometer work? I had to replace my speedo cable and mine stopped working for about a week until I fixed it.

Wait, is your 91 automatic? (thought they only started in 93) or did you swap

Nope, stock '91 SE-R and manual transaxle. New speedometer cable is compatible with both the transaxle and stock cluster as well.

Ok. something about the way you wrote that it was leaking trans fluid in mind made me think automatic

Ah, gotcha. Thankfully it's not! The gear oil I speak of was seeping out from around the sides of where the cable engages with the transaxle. Not much, but enough to see something was wrong! I thought maybe it had just loosened up, so I tried reinstalling and tightening it on the side of the road and it worked briefly. Drove without a speedometer for a month or two before ordering a new one from NissanPartsZone (great website)

Reference:
B13 SE-R Speedo Cable (03-20-13)