Questions and Answers

Escort Speedometer Q. I have a 1995 Ford Escort 1.9 liter manual with 85,000 miles on it. About a year ago on a notorious Minnesota winter morning I was driving to work and looked down to see my speedometer saying I was driving 115 MPH... needless to say I was not.

Ever since then my speedometer works great up to 60 MPH (about straight up) and anything past that is fluctuating, almost as if the needle just sways back and forth. I think that this is the speedometer and not the speed sensors because it works great in low-speed driving. Would you concur?

If so, and I need to replace the speedometer itself, I have a follow-up question. I looked through my service manual on how to replace the speedometer and it doesn't look very difficult (maybe a bit tricky getting the instrument panel back on) but there is a major part missing. Step #1 says: Disarm the airbag. Turning to the SRS portion of the manual it has 4 steps to disarm it. Disconnect the battery, wait a minute, remove the airbag, use caution when moving the airbag around. How do I remove the airbag???

There is no way I am spending money to get this fixed, and I can easily live without a functioning speedometer when I'm speeding until I buy a new car next year. However, I like the idea of DIY repair and since this one doesn't look too bad I thought I would look into the feasibility of doing it myself. Should I just let this one go?

Thanks for any insight you can lend me,
Rich

A. Your car still has a regular old speedometer cable. The most likely cause of the speedometer problem is this cable. I have seen this problem before and a new cable will fix it.

You still have to take out the instrument cluster to replace it. It's not that difficult, it just requires patience. It's a tight fit and will require a lot of finagling to get it in and out.

As to getting the air bag out, there are two bolts, 180 degrees apart right behind the steering wheel. They have small plastic covers hiding them. Just pop them off and you will see the bolts. You actually don't have to remove the steering wheel to get the cluster out. If you have tilt wheel, just put it in the lower position. If it is non-tilt, remove the four steering column support bolts and let the column come down a bit. This is the preferred way of doing it since it avoids messing with the air bag and the clock spring inside the steering wheel.

Before you remove the airbag, disconnect the battery and wait five minutes for the back up power supply to deplete. After that it will be safe to remove it.

If you have small hands, you can get the cable out by reaching under the dash and behind the cluster. Just press the retaining clip on the cable and slide it out. If you do it this way you won't have to mess with the instrument cluster at all.

Additional Information provided courtesy of ALLDATA