Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hello everyone,

My speedo (yellow dial) stopped working the other day as I was driving after driving for about 30 mins already, I took The wheel off and checked that the cable was still in place with the cir clip which it is so I don't know what the problem is, I have got another ready to change but looking under the dash couldn't see how to change it of check it as there is a sliver plate at the back it.

What do I do please? Can I change it myself? How do I change it?

I take it you have a "square dash" (early) 944 as you have the yellow dials? If so, then read on...

The way I do it is to work upside down in the drivers footwell, and push the rev counter and fuel gauge dials out of the silver bezel from behind. This then gives access (from sitting in the seat) to put your hands in the two empty holes either side and unscrew the speedo drive cable from the back of the speedo, which then also pushes out from behind.

As the old Haynes manual saying goes, "refitting is the reversal of removal". (With lots of swearing as you try to thread the speedo cable nut back on to the speedo blind with not much cable length to work with!)

It is a total faff though, having done it twice to my car, once to swap back to original yellow dials (it came with white face, red needle 924S dials) and once to do a dash swap!

Hope this helps...

Hi Andy,

Thanks for getting back to me, sorry for my very slow reply. I attempted it yesterday (bank holiday Monday) and wow what a nightmare I had, two hours it took me to change it, my hands kept getting stuck, then I found it didn't work so its not the dial then and now the speedo and rev dial don't light up either so im not impressed, I've double checked the cable it seems fine to me, any ideas what else it could be?

Many thanks.

Try sticking a smallish screwdriver into the back of the dash and spinning it quickly. You should be able to get enough for the needle to move at least a bit. If it does that then the dash is good. With mine the bracket where it goes through towards the wheel had worn through the cable and snapped it inside. Using a spare rubber grommet used for a brake hose fitted perfectly and should stop it happening again.

Are you certain the cable hasn't snapped? Mine had, about 10cm into the hub.

Take the NS front wheel off, unclip the circlip from the square speedo cable end and take off the dust cap (either a puller or hammer and cold chisel required). Give the end of the cable a little tug. Mine came out to show a rusted/broken end:


^^That shows the length from the speedo to the hub, the break was right at the hub and I don't have a picture of the 10cm of cable I pulled out...

If you find that, you then have all the fun of pulling the cluster out again to fit a new cable. Also the new cable I got has been coiled for years, so it gives a nice wobbly needle below 50mph

For the cluster I took the wheel off, then took out the three gauges in their surround (two screws going up into the dash from the outer pods). That gives far more space for playing. The difficulty I then had was getting the speedo gauge back into place with the cable attached... it really didn't want to go.

Is the hole in the dust cap on the hub still square? Sometimes the hole wears and the cable just sits still in the hub, rather than the dust cap turning it.

Also, when you do this, you need to make sure you push the outer of the cable all the way into the back of the hub, and that you have the right amount of inner cable and drive sticking out at the speedo end, otherwise the drive will not contact the input of the speedo properly.

If once fixed the speedo or rev counter still fail to light up, yet everything seems in place, check the earth points on the bulkhead behind the speedo and rev counter, it is easy for one of the spade terminals to fall off here, removing the earth point for the illumination or causing other weird faults with the dash electrics.

Hope this helps, its all pretty simple and the speedo's almost never go wrong other than the odometer gears breaking, but then again as the years pass, new common faults will present themselves where in the past they were unheard of.

I can't belive how slow I am at replying, I am indeed sorry. Firstly thank you for your quick replies they have been most helpful, I checked the cable as mentioned and it was indeed that just sa was said, I got a new OE one from ebay for half the price and it took me 3 hours to fit as I didn't know how to take the steering wheel off, (sad I know) but I did it and I must said that part is quite easy the hard part for me I found was routing it through from the wheel to the dial.

But it's done although it was fine for months but now it has a slight wobble under 30, but i have gave up caring for now on that.

I would have guessed at the end of the cable sheared off at the hub end. I see plenty like that

I am certainly learning.......

Mines got a terrible wobble under 40... The cable felt lubricated but I want to try some more lube at some point. (no lowering the tone now...)
I suspect it's partly caused by the cable being stored coiled for who knows how long before I bought it.