Hey all, I have a 1994 Dodge B350 van and I recently had a mechanic help me fix a transmission leak that was coming from my speedometer drive gear housing (speed sensor housing). We replaced the speed sensor and the pig tail and he took out the housing to replace the gasket there, as well (which fixed the transmission leak). Now my speedometer and cruise control don't work and the check engine light came on during my first time test driving it. I put another new speed sensor and pig tail in and the speedometer and cruise control still don't work (no check engine light this time). I had a different mechanic come out to test the new speed sensor and it seems to be working just fine, as well as the pig tail hookup. The question that I have is about the speedometer drive gear housing and how much play the speedometer pinion is supposed to have. I'm worried that the first mechanic messed up part of the components with the pinion when he removed the housing and now it can be pulled in and out slightly. I'm unsure if this is normal or not.
Does anyone out there have any advice on the situation or any light that you can shed on the situation for me? I greatly appreciate any help that I can get. Thank you!

 

I am confused with your terminology. Is this a mechanical gear drive system or electronic sensor? Put the leaky sensor back in and see if it works again. You didn't seem to have a problem registering the speed with that sensor.

 

On the 94 and up trucks/vans, the VSS was a mechanically driven (gears) signal generator. Depending on how many teeth on the driven gear, determines which way the sensor goes into its mounting hole. If it is indexed wrong, it either won't go in all the way, or, the gears won't mesh, and it simply won't work.

 

So Hey You, what you are saying it is a combination of the old and latest designs. My experience with the old mechanical gear and cable driven gear is that you are referencing the installed gear needs to be rotated against the transmission drive gear. So my thinking is the replaced sensors are not being installed properly.In the old drive units, you had to pay attention to correctly installing them.

 

Correct. It is essentially the same thing.

 

The mechanic that took out the original sensor broke it upon removing it to replace the gasket.

 

How do I go about doing this? What is the correct procedure for installing the housing and sensor?

 

Need to know the color of the driven gear on the VSS. There should be marks around the perimeter of the sensor housing, and an arrow, or some such, on the tailshaft where the sensor plugs into. You cross-reference the color of the driven gear (tooth count of the gear is color coded) and there is a chart that tells which marks you line up. Take a look at the sensor housing itself, the 'marks' MIGHT be a number. (which would be tooth count of the gear) Several sites out there which will tell you how many teeth you have on the gear, by the color.

 

Looking at Rock Auto Parts under electrical, therewas a sensor change in 1993. Shows 1994 as simply an electrical pick up style sensor. Maybe OP stated wrong year of his vehicle. I'm not sure whats going on with this. Can OP send us a pic of one of the sensors?

 

The 94 and up VSS goes in the same spot the cable drive for the speedo did on the older trucks. It's still gear driven, and still needs to be indexed. In 98, they did away with it altogether, and got vehicle speed from the sensor on top of the rear diff.