Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

Technical => Electrical Tech => Topic started by: baylensman on March 23, 2005, 02:25:01 PM

Title: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: baylensman on March 23, 2005, 02:25:01 PM
at 83K or so i had pulled the cluster from the dash as the lights were flickering. found a broken lead on the printed circit board. fixed this with rear window defogger repair kit. worked great no more flicker and lights are bright again. however the large greeen "S" in the cluster has appeared. according to shop manual this means a replacement odometer?? well its the original and the milage (now 94K) is correct for the car. is there a way to turn off the "S" letter

tahnks
walt
87 5.0
Just starting mods :america:
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: Cougar5.0 on March 23, 2005, 02:56:24 PM
Quote from: baylensman
at 83K or so i had pulled the cluster from the dash as the lights were flickering. found a broken lead on the printed circit board. fixed this with rear window defogger repair kit. worked great no more flicker and lights are bright again. however the large greeen "S" in the cluster has appeared. according to shop manual this means a replacement odometer?? well its the original and the milage (now 94K) is correct for the car. is there a way to turn off the "S" letter

tahnks
walt
87 5.0
Just starting mods :america:


I thought the guy who discovered the 199 MPH resistor change also discovered that it was a resistor on the PCB that turned the dreaded "S" on - I could be wrong though...
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: armyguy298 on March 23, 2005, 08:25:44 PM
I bought my Cougar and was told it had 41,000 original miles. After owning the car a few months, I finally found out what that was for as well. The  speedo has been replaced. However, the car is in way to good of condition to ever doubt the authenticity of the mileage. Maybe it was replaced early in the cars life? Did these cars ever have a history of bad speedos? Id be interested to know how to turn the "S" off too.
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: jkirchman on March 24, 2005, 10:44:33 AM
Bondocougar discovered this last year when he posted about the digital speedo mod:

Quote from: bondocougar
W3 Jumper - I confirmed like someone mentioned earlier that a jumper in the W3 position turns on the "S" indicator in the speedo.


So there you have it.  I'm not sure what it means, but there it is anyway.
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: EricCoolCats on March 24, 2005, 10:52:36 AM
Probably what happened is that replacement speedo modules from Ford had the W3 jumper soldered on. Removing that jumper will remove the S from the display. If indeed there was a Ford-replaced speedo unit in a car, by U.S. law they had to put a sticker in the door jamb stating so. Work done at a dealership would certainly have the sticker...but for those that did the work themselves, the chances of that sticker being present are slim to none.
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: jkirchman on March 24, 2005, 10:57:30 AM
Quote from: ericcoolcats
Probably what happened is that replacement speedo modules from Ford had the W3 jumper soldered on. Removing that jumper will remove the S from the display.


Yeah but how would that explain having the "S" indicator light up when you take a speedo from one car and put it in another?
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: EricCoolCats on March 24, 2005, 11:13:07 AM
Maybe there's smart little gremlins inside. :)
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: Cougar8775 on March 24, 2005, 11:39:14 AM
yeah ive found em in there before and they are a pain in the ass to get out cuz they grab ahold of everything when you are trying to pull em out.:D
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: armyguy298 on March 24, 2005, 01:09:52 PM
LOL!  :D  :hick:
Title: Re: dreaded "S" on digitial dash
Post by: Cougar8775 on March 24, 2005, 08:31:36 PM
yeah it was fun pulling em out til they went swingin for my nutz now have one of them buggers goin for them is not cool!