From time to time the ODOMETER light goes out! ( the mileage ) and the RPM neddle goes to 0 , and everything comes back,.... what can this be??

Thanks


Another thing , how can i clean the carburetor without taking it out, i bought this Clean-R-Carb its a spray , can i just spray it?


Dodge Stratus 1997, 2.4

 

I'd bet a loose connection ...Since you don't list year ect some of the early ones had screws holding the PC board onto the cluster and make connections ...If they work loose they will get intermittant

 

Mine has been like this since I first purchased my 96 Strat a few months ago. I start the car and the odometer and tach stay off until the engine is warmed up then it comes to life usually after about ten to fifteen minutes of driving. Not really sure why it would does this. Mine isn`t intermittent as I know it will come to life after a short while!

 

Don't spray that carb cleaner anywhere.. Your car is EFI and you'll most likely destroy the injectors, and possibly remove any sort of factory coating that was inside of the throttle body, not to mention dissolve the plastic on your intake pipe. Carb cleaner is really, really strong.

If you are going to clean something, use throttle body cleaner (also damaging to most plastics afaik), but make sure that the run-off doesn't clog up your IAC or else you'll have idle problems and you'll probably have to replace a very expensive little motor. Don't spray it through your intake pipe though or else you can damage your MAF sensor.

If you want to clean your MAF sensor (don't know if your car has one or not.. will need ratsttam or someone to give their knowledge on that) you'll want to get MAF cleaner, which is very gentle, and does a very good job on cleaning the more delicate components (i.e. plastic, $200 airflow sensors..)

As for the odometer problem, it sounds like a short or something to me.. does it happen under electrical load? or just randomly? (i.e. when you hit bumps)

Hope this helps (and double check everything with another source in this post before you follow any of my directions.. this is from my own knowledge and can't be guaranteed to be accurate..)

 

GPG, Thanks for the mention! I'm sorry, I don't know much about the 4cyl 1st gen strats (i have the v6). I do agree that the cluster issue seems to be a wire problem. I would look to see if the short is in the wire leading to the temperature gauge, since it seems to fix itself and the lights come on when the car warms up. There is a post earlier that shows how to do a "self test" on your cluster. You can find it by looking through the forum for it. I'll post back if I have time tomorrow with the direct link to the post.
The test will cut off the inputs, and if it comes on for the test and goes back out... than you'll know!

 

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/showthr...t=cluster+test
There ya go! Give it a test and see if it helps any.