Nissan Repair: speedometer, vehicle speed sensor, volt ohm meter

Question
QUESTION: my speedomter on my 1995 pathfinder doesnt work at all yet all my gauges and tach do work. i have replaced my speed sensor and my dash cluster and still nothing ,any suggestions.

ANSWER: Curtis,

You will need to do some diagnosis.  I would almost bet the new speedometer from the wrecking yard is defective.  If you got a remanufactured one clean the contacts on the cluster and the harness with a number 2 pencil eraser and blow off the dust and reinstall.  For really bad corrosion on the contacts you can use tuner cleaner.  But, use just enough since you do not want it getting into the cluster or on the face of it.  If that fails then remove the cluster and get a digital volt ohm meter and backprobe the speedometer pickup at the harness that attaches to the cluster.  I think it is the cluster since the vehicle speed is picked up by the computer at the cluster connection.  The wire is daisy chained back to the computer.  So, if the wiring harness was bad or the vehicle speed sensor did not work properly you would end up throwing a check engine code eventually.

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QUESTION: i will check out the cluster ,but the check engine light is always on,

Answer
Curtis,

If the check engine light is on drive over to an Autozone or Checker and get the code read for free.  The computer could will provide information as to what is setting the check engine light and they will provide the service for free.  Email me back with the code and we'll discuss some more.