Driving home tonight, Cruising at roughly 60 MPH and it acted like the key was shut off. No power and depressing gas pedal did nothing for about 15 sec, then took off just fine. Happened 4 times in about 30 min of drive time. Then speedometer dropped off to zero for a few miles, truck ran OK.... I had my OBDII meter connected and I checked VSS readings , The screen looked like a erratic mountainscape. Peaks and valleys all over. It then settled down to just an occasional peak up about 10 mph.

I have suspected a flaky VSS for some time now. I have a replacement one on hand. I am guessing it is past time to replace it. Anything else I should take a look at?? 1997 Disco 1, 4.0 L with 183,000 miles...
Thanks!

 

Yeah, VSS. If you want to confirm unplug it and see how it drives. It isn't difficult if the allen wrench you use is long enough.

 

looks like you need real small hands to get up there. Muffler is in the way.

 

I gave up trying to get to that crazy thing. Took it in to a shop that was able to get the old one out and replace it with the one I had on hand. so far it looks to be working great!! Looking at the live data for the VSS, I still see some peaks but they are less than 1 mph which I don't think will matter. Time will tell, the old one seems to have a lot of slop and that was probably causing the problems.

Sadly my cruise still doesn't work, but since I have a SRS light, and horn quit working, I am guessing it is the clockspring.