Revcounter needle bouncing up & down - engine revs are ok th

[nia573 0]

Wonder if anyone can shed any light on this.[:^(]

Car is a '91 8v Gti fitted with a 2e 2 litre engine with full loom & ecu, and the matching Corrado clocks (with digital odometer)

 

The car runs fine with no problems, but today when in traffic the rev counter needle started swinging up & down & all over the place. The engine revs stayed as they should though. Then while carrying on the journey the needle died altogether.

 

If I stop then start again the needle will hover around the 1k mark then die again, giving the occasional blip of life. Noticed this evening that when I switched the light switch on the dash, as well as having the blower on full & switching the Heated Rear Window switch the rev counter needle blips into life again for a short while - which could perhaps be an earth issue??

 

Where should I look next? I plan to have a look at the earth connections by the fusebox tomorrow, & perhaps remove & clean the battery terminals as well as the earth from coil to the rear of the head. Perhaps remove, clean & check the ecu connection too?

 

Where does the rev counter get the signal from, the connection that plugs into the coil itself (black multiplug)? Does this run to the ecu or into the back of the fuseboard?

 

It could possibly be a dodgy cluster too I suppose but I thought I'd check the possibles before replacing that

 

 

This small problem just appeared out of the blue today, but it did occur about 18 months or more ago, but dissapeared just as suddenly after a few weeks, & has been perfect until today. Just to confirm the engine runs & idles perfectly so the engine revs don't match the swinging needle on the revcounter

 

Cheers

Mikey

[ben16v 0]

i would say an earth issue, i had similar, defo pull out your battery and chek for ant corrosion under there and as you said clean everything up

 

hope all goes well

[Mark_Storm 0]

I have had a similar problem with my VR. Engine runs fine but the rev counter was playing up, as if it kept disconnetcting and reconnecting. Figured it was something to do with me wiring up the Schrick inlet but never fully investigated it. Stopped doing it as quickly as it started ???

[G60rob 0]

With my G60 it turned out to be the Hall Effect sensor in the distributor. Not available as a separate part, so new dissy. Try wiggling it (where the low tension leads connect to the side of the dissy) and see if the engine cuts out. My first symptom was the rev counter needle flicking and spending a lot of time at zero, followed by intermittent stalling of the engine many weeks later.

[Stan 24v 0]

Had the same issue after my conversion. It turned out to be the clocks, as they'd lost some insulation on the cables and it was interference. Put your phone on the dash, in front of the clocks, and ring it. See what it does then :wink:

[nia573 0]

Interesting!!

 

After reading the above about the hall sender, I just disconnected the connector at the side of the dizzy, gave it a quick spray with contact cleaner & reconnected it & the revcounters been perfect since & not fluttered at all! I'll keep an eye on it & I'll try the other ideas if it happens again!

 

 

Thanks for the comments

Mike

[dutchboy 0]

my hall sender seems to make a clicking sound constantly. Is this not good? I'm having a similar rev problem.