Hi all, I just joined the forum, looks like a nice community you have here

Ok, on to the problem I'm having, this is seriously pissing me off lol. My mom has a 1995 3.8 v6 Ford Windstar van with 146,000 miles.

Recently she complained about her speedometer not working, a cel light and that the transmission was "shifting weird." I pulled the code for the cel and see it's fault code for the VSS, that makes sense to me and would explain the weird shifting since the trans computer needs the VSS to work.

So first thing I do is replace the VSS sensor with a new unit. All done right!? Not so much, go drive the car and no dice, speedometer still won't work. Hmm, you bastard! Then I drive the van around for about 15 minutes and the speedometer begins to work, but it's very jittery/bouncy but at least the trans works smoothly again.

I noticed these vans use a cable to operate the speedometer needle in the gauge cluster. So since the VSS was new, plus I checked it before I put it in and I could clearly see the slot for the cable turned perfectly with the plastic gear, I assumed the issue would be speedometer cable or the cluster itself.

These vans have two sections of speedometer cable:
1. Comes from the dash cluster through the firewall.
2. Connects to the first piece near the brake booster and runs down to the
VSS sensor on the transmission.

So when I disconnected the cable up near the brake booster and could spin the cluster end of the cable and had a buddy verify the speedo needle moves as it should. I then hooked up my drill to it to spin it at a steady speed and the needle was not bouncy or jittery at all. So I replaced the cable between the cluster cable and the VSS sensor.

Still the same damn problem!! AHHH!!! This time I pull the VSS back out and verify everything is working as it should. There is no physical problem with the VSS, so I put the little jerk back in its hole and left it alone for a few days.

The next week I was at a pick-a-part for one of my cars and noticed a super clean ‘96 windstar with only 98,000 miles on the odometer, since it was a half price day, I pulled the entire cluster with the cable to replace my Mom's. So I replaced the cluster in my Mom’s van, and just as I expected, it still had the same issue.

So at this point, I'm thinking the problem lies with the gear that drives the VSS gear from inside the transmission. Another reason this makes sense to me is because of the VSS cel that keeps coming back. Think about it, the trans computer doesn't care about a cable driven speedometer in the cluster. I'm pretty sure it receives it's signal from the harness connected to the VSS down on the transmission, and if the internal gear isn't being driven by the transmission, then the sensor isn't going to have a signal to transmit to the TCU. So there’s that, and the fact that I replaced EVERY-DAMN-THING between the cluster and the trans ...

Does anyone know if this is easily serviceable? The transmission still seems to work fine, other than the shift points being screwed up from a lack of vehicle speed reference. I really don't want to pull this damn transmission for a freaking speedometer gear, what a pain in the ***!

Thanks for reading my freaking novel and any help or ideas you may have would be appreciated! Have a nice weekend.

--Dustin