80 Series | Odometer Adjustment

[Andrew]

Hi all,

A few weeks ago I went down to Death Valley for a week of camping and exploring. It was an awesome trip and the cruiser didn't miss a beat with one exception, the speedometer/odometer quit while still down in California.

I did not mess with diagnosing the issue on the trip, and the day after this happened I roadtripped 14 hours back to Colorado all in one shot. As a result of this trip and being the daily driver, I have put a little over 1,500 miles on it since the odometer quit. Odometer states 324,168 and I calculate it should be at 325,755.

I finally crawled under the truck and did the diagnosis. Turns out it was the VSS off the T-Case was bad. I have a new one on order and the odometer I hope will be back in buisness later this week.

It may be more of a pain then its worth, but does anyone have experience adjusting the odometer themselves or having an online or in person speedo shop work on an 80 series cluster? Seems from reading on Mud it is quite difficult for the average joe to try.

Any recommendations on how to adjust would be greatly appreciated.

Pic just cuz:

 

[DanInDenver]

Odometers are designed not to be messed with. Doing anything in the long run is worse than the error.
In the grand scheme of things the amount your actual is off isn’t worth the trouble to correct and will only show evidence of tampering.
Your to be applauded for your honesty but when you go to sell let them know the estimated error in actual miles.
However looks like you love the truck and won’t ever be selling so enjoy and don’t worry about it.

 

[IoN6]

Did you adjust the speedo when you went with larger tires and/or regear? If not, your odometer has been off ever since tires/regear. I know my 80 is off by ~10%. So for every 100 miles the odometer says I went, I've actually gone 110.

 

[Andrew]

Did you adjust the speedo when you went with larger tires and/or regear? If not, your odometer has been off ever since tires/regear. I know my 80 is off by ~10%. So for every 100 miles the odometer says I went, I've actually gone 110.

It's been pretty close to 100% accurate since I went to bigger tires. 4.88s and 37s match pretty well. According to waze, its within a mph of being accurate.

And ya, I know its sorta a silly thing to try to adjust this. At this point I am just proud of the miles and want to see how far I take it. This is my first car I bought when I was 15 (about to come up on my 10 year anniversary with it). I bought it with 191,000 and it's been taking care of me ever since.

I saw on mud someone mentioned throwing a drill or dermal on the VSS spinning it forward that way. But since the 96 is electronic VSS it would need to be pulsed by a power source it sounds like. Is anyone savy enough to understand if that is a possibily?

 

[IoN6]

Were you on 4.88's and smaller tires for a while? Hopefully you can see where I am going with this. I highly, highly doubt the odometer is even close to completely accurate. So why bother, both physically and legally? The 1500 missing miles represent less than .5% of your actual milage.

 

[Inukshuk]

 

[Andrew]

I had that thought!

 

[Corbet]

Not worth the trouble. In all likely hood you're most likely the final owner of the truck. And even if not the next is not going to care about 1500 miles. on a 300K+ rig.

 

[shellb]

Completely agree, I would not worry about adjusting it at all.