Cascade Crew

[fiveoformula]

So I bought this '88 S10 really cheap, and the brilliant guy who replaced the tranny cut the speedometer cable. no big deal I figure I'll just get a new cable and put it in. When I did it the first time after a few minutes of driving, I notice a ticking noise that gets louder the faster I drive. I go back to the cable and look and failed to notice how close I routed it to the exhaust. So I grab another 10 dollar cable and route it better and it still ticks! and the needle bouces around really bad, and when I drive it like this, it feels like it keeps locking and unlocking the torque converter, either that or its actually downshifting and upshifting erratically.. Anyone fight a problem like this before? could the cluster just have a problem? What will make the needle jump so much?

[Al Hasse]

Since it's the same with more than one cable, maybe check the condition of the driven gear. Hole for the cable stripped out?? Maybe the speedo itself like you said.

[Twilightoptics]

If the speedo is bouncing its usually a sticky speedometer cable. Since the cable is new I'd pull the bullet out and inspect the teeth like AL said. If that's good, it's the speedo itself.

[fiveoformula]

Well it isn't quite as loud with this cable, the last one was really bad. So I will check out that drive gear. With the cable unplugged, does the torque converter not lockup?

[aaron_sK]

The converter (and a lot of other stuff in the ECM) relies heavily on the VSS.

Are these cables pre-lubed? Dry cables stick, then bounce up like you describe.

[Twilightoptics]

Cable setups use a VSS buffer from the speedometer, not from the trans output itself.

[aaron_sK]