NTXJeepXJ

Hi, everyone. I am new to the site but have been following for some time.

I am in the process of buying a 1996 XJ SE with very low miles. My son will be driving this across country occasionally, and I want to ensure that he has proper gauges to detect any problems early. I have reviewed many threads on here that show that the instrument cluster swap is pretty easy, and I can change out the oil pressure and water temperature sensors to enable the gauges.

My question is in regards to the odometer. Since this is a low miles XJ, I would like the odometer to be correct. Is it possible to swap the speedometer and odometer from our existing housing into a new cluster with the gauges, or is this something that a certified speedometer repair service can do for us?

Is there anything else I need to consider regarding the instrument cluster swap?

BlueRidgeMark

Welcome!

I don't know the answer, but I am certain that I have seen it discussed here in the last.... 5 years or so? I hate to say this but,,,,,, try the search function again.

Spencer_P

I have done the swap to full gauges and I kept my original odometer. What I did was swap the face to that matched the full gauges onto the speedo/odo assembly from my Jeep. If the faces happen to already match then just unscrew the whole thing and drop it in. Once you have the clusters in front of you you'll see they come apart pretty easily. Here is the thread I created, not sure how helpful it'll be. Again only problem I had was having to switch faces. Currently, my speedo is off by 7 mph, I'll correct it one of these days.

NTXJeepXJ

Thank you. As with many search functions, something they return to many results making it difficult to find the answer you are looking for.

NTXJeepXJ

Thank you, Spencer! The thread you linked really helps.

What I gather from your thread is that you can easily swap the non-gauges speedometer / odometer into the instrument cluster that has proper gauges, but the style will not match.

It appears that my options are:
1) Swap the odometer gauge and ignore the mismatched styles. I believe from what I have read that this will work just fine.
2) Swap the odometer gauge and replace the face and needle with the matching face from the new cluster. This may result in the speedo being off.
3) Swap the odometer gauge and look for aftermarket faces for all of the gauges to make them match.

There is one other option I am curious about.
4) Take both instrument clusters to a certified speedometer repair center and have them reset the odometer of the new instrument cluster to match the old instrument cluster. Is this an option?

RocketMouse

Yes it can be done if you're overly concerned about it. They even sell the device to reset it yourself..but back when I did my swap... I couldn't be bothered to spend that kind of cash when I'd used it all of 1 time. So for evidence, I just took time-stamped photos of the original cluster with mileage and then the start of the OD reading when I put the new one in that had all the gauges. And kept it for record that way.
Then you could have it reset anytime you wanted to in the future if you chose to.
I personally like the looks I get when people see 251k on the OD and say wow it's in great shape for that kind of miles... when in reality....my 99 only has about 110k on it. lol....

RocketMouse

sorry... I retract my previous statement... I was thinking that it was 96 and newer had the latest gen cluster with the digital OD. Think it might be 97+ for that style.

NTXJeepXJ

Thanks, everyone. For the record, I spoke to a certified speedometer repair center near me, and they confirmed that they can reset the odometer in the new instrument cluster with gauges to the exact miles from the old odometer for less than $100. Given how odd it is to find a 25 year old vehicle with low miles, it seems worth the money and hassle.

Thank you all for your help. I will let you know how it goes.

ElMartillo

From what I remember, on my ‘96 I used a drill motor to change the odo reading on the “new” cluster to match the mileage on the existing one. Again, from memory, the difference between the clusters was maybe around 20K miles or so. Didn’t take long.

BlueRidgeMark

Yeah, I know. That's why I hated to point you in that direction. And sometimes, what you are looking for just isn't there. But knowing for sure that it is there sometimes helps.