Dealing with a dead gauge?

[Buloong]

The gauge on my M620 doesn't read mileage anymore. Actually it does, but it measures light-year unit instead of miles (jumped a sum of one click in the last two or three weeks of riding). The speedo had shat itself for a good while and made me think I was either 5 or 120mph and nothing in between. Now it stays at 0 like an impotent dick.

If I swap to a new gauge, assuming I can find one, how will the mileage show on it?

 

[Abyss]

Whatever is already put on a bike bearing that gauge is what it will show.

 

[Junkie]

Mileage tends to be stored on the gauge itself.

 

[Rob]

Sounds like your gauge is fine but your speedo cable/wormgear is fuxored.

 

[monstermonster]

The gauge on my M620 doesn't read mileage anymore. Actually it does, but it measures light-year unit instead of miles (jumped a sum of one click in the last two or three weeks of riding). The speedo had shat itself for a good while and made me think I was either 5 or 120mph and nothing in between. Now it stays at 0 like an impotent dick.

If I swap to a new gauge, assuming I can find one, how will the mileage show on it?

You're not going to be able to swap the gauge without dealing with the immobilizer. Besides, like Rob said, the problem is likely not with the gauge.

 

[Buloong]

Thanks, guys. Guess I just leave it for now until I can find a cable to test. I don't need to know how slow I am or how shitty the gas mileage is anyway.

 

[Smokey94086]

Is this a digital or analog gauge?

From a quick search I did not see any analog monster gauge clusters. They were all digital, which would not be a speedometer cable/gear issue.

 

[Buloong]

Year 2002. Analog speedo, digital odo.

 

[Smokey94086]

Replace the cable. They are usually cheap.

If that isn't the solution then you are gonna have to get into the worm gear in the front wheel.

 

[psychocandy]

If the speedo is kaput and it's analog, check the cable first. Cheapest, easiest, most likely fix.

If it's not the cable, check whatever drives the worm gear. It's probably takes the place of the spacer on one side of the front hub. The speedo drive gear thingy on SV650s are notorious for breaking. They're easy to bust if you don't take care when putting the front wheel back in. Two cheesy plastic tabs that fit into a cut out in the hub that rotate with the wheel and drive the cable. Maybe the Monster is similar.

The digital odo must get its signal from the analog speedo somehow. It would be silly and redundant for the odometer to have its own sensor to calculate mileage. Might as well make the speedo digital in that case too. Solve the first problem, you'll likely solve the second.

 

[Rob]

In the past, I've used a screw gun to turn the speedo cable to diagnose problems like this.
Pull the cable from worm gear and clamp it with the screw gun. Make sure to turn the cable both ways to make sure it's working/not working.

 

[BURNROPE]

There's a place in Palo Alto that repairs speedos. They repaired mine and advised me to get a new cable as well. That was 12 years ago and I haven't had any problems.