98 Tacoma speedo and tach replacement. Does tranny (auto or manual) matter?

Hey Gang.

This is my first post. I'm not new to vehicle maintenance, but new to the site. Its appears for a lot of searching I've been doing that I have a rare animal. My truck is a 98 2wd ext cab SR5. It has a 4 cyl with manual tranny. The instrument cluster has digital odometer. The tach and speedo start giving me problems about 4 years ago. It would work and then I'd hit a bump and it would stop working. Shut it off and turn it back on and it would work. Then one day it stopped. Drove it for almost a year that way, then one day is just started working again. Then it would stop, I'd hit a bump, and it would start working again. When it would go out for a semi long period of time, I'd get the check engine light. I ran the code and it stated that it was the speed sensor. After months of it working intermittently, I broke down and bought a new speed sensor. That didn't fix it. I ran the wiring and found no problems. Checked the connector at the computer and it was fine. Pulled and cleaned the connectors at the speed sensor and at the instrument cluster. Still no change. It hasn't worked solid in the past 2 years for mor then a couple of seconds (and it's very few and far between).

Doing more research, it appears that I'm not the only one with this issue. Some say they've replaced the instrument cluster and that fixed it. So now I'm at that point. However, my cluster is near impossible to find. I'm either finding one for an automatic, or for a 6 cyl. But never a 4 cyl with a manual tranny. Will a auto tranny with 4 cyl work? I can change the face place so that it doesn't have the gear indications on it.

Any ideas if this will work or if you know what else might be the issue with my truck? I've made zero mods to my truck and really like it stock. The speedo/odometer stopped around 190K. I'm sure I've got close to 250K on it now. Still great little truck. But would like for the speedo to work (and would really like to have my cruise control back too).

Thanks Gang.

 

I am curious if the reason your speedometer went out, and all the electrical seems to be fine, may be a result of a failure of the transmission speedometer gear. Have you checked to make sure that it was working properly?

 

Yes I thought of that early on. The speed sensor isn't gear driven.

 

Perhaps I should have worded it properly. Have you checked to make sure that there are no issues with the reluctor wheel in the transmission. That reluctor is what triggers the signal in the speed sensor. Some reluctors have been known to crack, allowing the output shaft to spin, but the reluctor to remain stationary. It is the least likely cause, but a possibility to investigate.