I own a 1992 Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorer 2 WD and last weekend while driving home from a vacation my speedometer needle started going nuts [:'(]. Everything was fine and working on the way up to the vacation and while driving to little trips to the store while at the cabin but about 20 minutes into the trip home I was on the freeway going about 70 mph and I noticed the needle was bouncing from 70 mph to the 85 mph mark so I slowed down and that's when I noticed it was broken. I slowed and it went from 80 to 35 in less then a second then all the way up to 90 and past it hitting the bottom.
Now if I’m going say 15-20 mph it’s bobbing at 55 mph and when going over 50-60 mph it’s as far over the 90 mph mark as it can go.
It's not affecting the odometer or anything else that I notice like other people have said had happen to them but I need to fix it soon. Can anyone help me out? I've never had this happen before in any other car of mine.
Thanks!!
Melissa

 

I am fairly sure the 1992 explorers have a speedometer cable vs a speedometer sensor that controls the needle by electical impulses.
Sounds like your cable is breaking down. It nornally makesa whining noise when it starts breaking down. If it is the cable, it will eventually break and the speedo will go to zero and stay there. Your dealer or local repair shop can easily replace it if you donlt have capabilities. If it is not the cable, the problem is in teh instrument cluster....good luck!

 

Mine did that on 92 explorer. I had to replace the speedometer cluster and its a pain in the butt. I had to remove the face, the bottem cover, lower the steering colume, unhook the gear selector, then the plugs and speedometer cable. When I removed the lower cover I found alot of shaving. The process tooked me about 2 to 3 hours. I hope this helps. There is also a circuit board on the side make sure you use the same one as some can be different.

 

It could be the cable or the drive gear in the tranny, but my experience was that the jewelled bearing in the speedometer itself went bad. I found this out by lots of internet reading. This won't affect the odometer, but it makes the speedo bounce, and the bouncing gets worse as you go faster. I had to remove the instrument cluster (be careful not to damage the small cable that moves the transmission indicator...Park, Neutral, etc.) Once the cluster was removed, I sent it to a speedometer repair place through the local dealership. About 150 dollars later it came back all fixed. No problems since. A word of caution, the cluster was somewhat difficult to remove, especially getting the speedo cable disconnected. You need another elbow in your arm to make all the bends you need to get to the backside of the cluster!