New Speedometer Cables Keep Breaking (96 4x4)

Hi all,

Last august as I was driving to a friends house my speedometer suddenly went out. No flickering, no jumping, just instantly dead. I crawled under it when I got home and checked out the cable. The cable had very obviously come apart, so I ordered a new one. Got the new one on and everything worked great for 90 miles, until this new cable broke. This time the metal tip on the transfer case end had come loose and was spinning freely of the cable. I tried to fix this, but only made things worse, so I order the same cable again.

The newest cable lasted about 120 miles before it began jumping around, and broke at 133 miles. Great. Crawled under the truck to find the same as last time, the metal tip was loose. On both of these cables I did my best to lube them with silicone before installation (probably not the best choice in hindsight, but anyway). Neither cable can be turned by hand, and a drill struggles to move either. It seems to me as if both cables slowly gained friction until something gave way. I don't want to buy another $80+ cable until I can make sure the same thing wont happen again.

Both cables were bought through Toyota Parts Prime (#83710-35180)

I am also going to contact Toyota about warranty on the newest cable. I essentially voided the warranty on the first one by trying to fix it.

Any suggestions?

 

Did you use the mounting tabs that are under the floorboard to secure the cable?

 

The first new cable I installed I hooked up all of the connecters. With the second one I didn't use the one under the passenger side floorboard, but a previous owner had a loose zip tie to route the cable, so I threaded it through that.

 

And they are genuine OEM with heat shielding and all?

 

Yes, both were ordered through an online dealer, but they are real toyota parts.

 

That's weird. I guess I just got lucky with mine, I'm still using the original that came with my 96 in my 4runner and it's still kicking.

 

After half a year without a speedometer save for about 300 miles, I found the issue. Each of these cables got to close to the manifold and melted inside, leading to heavy friction and ultimately failure. I'm not sure of my truck has a custom exhaust (Very possible, it has at minimum been repaired crapily with a welder), but the factory mounts did not keep the cable far enough away from the exhaust. A couple of zip ties were the solution for this.

I only realized this was the problem when I looked over the current broken cable and found the sheath was melted off for a solid 4 inches. New cable is installed (hopefully for the last time) and has clocked 28 miles so far. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions, hope this thread may help someone in the future.

 

I had the same issue on my 97. Replaced the cable in the factory routing, and a short time later it broke from being melted by the exhaust. When I replaced it again, I rerouted it as far away from the exhaust as I could and it’s been going for at least 4-5 years now.

 

That's good to hear, gives me hope my cable will survive a while

 

Do any of you have any pictures or could you give any pointers for removing the cable? You can just take it loose at the transfer case and slip it out without having to dig into the dash/cluster? My speedometer bounces almost all the time and screams like an air-raid siren on cold mornings, was going to slip it out and coat in graphite if it isn't already frayed.

 

So I can't say for sure if this is all Tacos, but the inner sheath on all 4 cables including the one installed when I bought the truck could not be removed. There are videos on YouTube of the sheath being removed, but I'm not sure it's possible.

On one of my destroyed cables I hacked up the plastic part that connects the cable to the instrument cluster and found that that end of the cable has a large plastic ferrule that prevents it from being pulled out from either end. Again, I don't know if this is all cables or just the ones I had.

As for removing the entire cable w/ housing, the dash will have to be taken apart. It takes some time, but is not that difficult as long as the plastic trim doesn't crack.