Hey so I’ve got a 98 ranger xlt 4.0 v6 4x4 and the speedo will not work, it’ll randomly go max speed sometimes but other than that it won’t work, I replaced the abs speed sensor on the rear diff and the tranny speed sensor checked out just fine, what else should I check?

 

I'm assuming all the other dash gauges are working properly? I would start looking for a damaged wire

 

Well the gas gauge is stuck at half and the coolant temp gauge is much past max and I looked behind the dash and there was a damaged wire but i tested the resistance between that and the GEM module and there wasn’t hardly any resistance so repaired it but other than that I’m not sure

 

Sorry i can't be much help. Wires are hard to diagnose without patience, and I'm not that great with a multimeter yet. I'm also bad about firing the parts cannon too because i don't have the time to thoroughly diagnose everything.. but i do remember some crazy story about a broken wire inside a harness underneath a vehicle (i think it was a ranger) that all tied in together from the fuel pump to the dash lights somehow and made the car have misleading symptoms like it was spark related or something.. of course now i can't recall where i saw that at..

I'm having an issue with my fuel gauge and i know it's not the sending unit, but i haven't removed my dash yet to investigate. I'm curious how your problem will turn out. Only those three gauges are malfunctioning? Do they share a connector? If everything behind the dash checked out, I'd definitely start looking at the wire diagram for where else it connects to other harnesses, like maybe in the engine bay etc..
Any issue with the 4x4 lights? Thought i saw where you pinged an old thread to test between dash and GEM. (I wish RonD was still around with all his knowledge!) And have you checked all the fuses related to this circuit?

 

Yea the 4x4 switch doesn’t work but I’ve got locking hubs so I still have 4x4 but I’m leaning towards a bad gem module but I’m not sure how to test it

 

Yes the lights themselves work for the 4x4 and yes those are the only three that are being funky, I’m also not sure if I mentioned the odo follows the speedo

 

If the GEM is bad it's supposed to throw a code. I recall my 4x4 dash lights not working (don't remember if 4x4 would actually engage- this was like 15 years ago) and turned out to be a bad GEM but i never got any CEL.. I'm sure there's a way to test it, but again, I'm bad to just replace parts for lack of time and knowledge.. I would agree there's a good possibility it could be that, or something in the dash panel if all the wires between are good.

 

Hmm, do you know of any way to test the printed circuit on the back of the dash? Also do you know how to test the actual gauge it’s self to se if it’s working right?

 

And I’ll check for any codes

 

On my 98 I had to replace the back half of the instrument cluster. The part where all the gauges plug into. I was getting voltage out of the GEM module but it wasn't getting to the speedometer.