E450 speedometer issue

[hpp]

2004 Coachman Santera based on E450 chassis

Over the winter the batteries in both my cab and coach died. They were both about a year old when I bought the unit and I've had it for 5 years, so no complaints there. I picked up a new Motorcraft unit for the cab and two Interstates for the coach. After leaving home on our first trip, noticed I had no speedometer. All other gauges worked as did the odometer. The odometer is not a digital type but the conventional roller type, so any panel reset by holding the trip button do not work. I do not have a cable driven speedo. I disconnected the speed sensor and hit it with some electronic cleaner and put it back together. No change.

So any way to narrow this down to a speed sensor or speedo head unit?

[hpp]

Found a new stepper motor on Amazon for $16 so I ordered it. A few days later it arrived. Pulled my dash apart, got the cluster out, took it apart and discovered there evidently there is early and late '04 dashes. Looks like mine is a '98 to early '04 versions that uses an entirely different stepper motor and is not rebuildable by the average home mechanic. Doing web searches, it appears there is a very limited number of places that can even attempt to rebuild this version of gauge cluster. So, looks like my options are a)purchase a used unit and hope it works and that the mileage on it isn't too far out of whack compared to my original. b)buy a new unit and have the odometer rolled to match. c) ship my cluster across country to someone who can rebuild it.

Looks like I have some pricing to do.

[hpp]

Looking at the needle, it is on the correct side of the stop, so it hasn't rotated around. Tired a reset by disconnecting the battery for a while, then reconnecting. Took it for a drive, no dice. Even rapped on the cluster, again no change. So it sounds like the motor for the needle is bad. I see speedometer stepper motor son Amazon for $16-24. So this is the likely culprit?

[j-d]

Stuck on Zero? Our 2002 hadn't been driven much when we bought it. When we started on a trip, speedo needle didn't move from zero. Rapped it with the back of my hand and it worked. That was nearly ten years ago. Now it sticks maybe once a year.

[carringb]

The odometer and speedometer are both driven by the "PSOM" which is a small controller in the cluster. If one works, it means it's getting a signal from the PCM, which means the motor for the needle itself is bad. (Or stuck, os mentioned above). Even though it's an analog odometer display, it's still 100% electronically controlled.

[Home_Skillet]

Sometimes when the battery goes dead, the speedo needle goes all the way around and gets stuck on the stop pin.

Try unhooking the battery and reconnecting it. It may reset itself.
If not, you would have to manually rotate the needle around. Sometimes a blast of compressed air will nudge the needle back around-counter clockwise.