Speedometer repair

[Shelly Harris]

Anyone have a good speedometer repair place?

Mine went crazy this afternoon. Suddenly began with a grinding noise and the needle jumping around all over the dial.

[Mad Scientist]

Sounds like my tachometer. It was working, then sounded like it had a noisy cable, then stared reading higher then the actual engine speed and now is stuck at 2000 rpm.:mad:

I will let you know what I find after I take mine apart. With the exception of the odometer I would expect the guts to be the same.

Sounds like yours just needs a good cleaning and re-oiling.

[Shelly Harris]

I hope to get a look at it tomorrow. I never had the instrument cluster off and I have to take my time. I'm planning on following the service manual step by step.

With all the grinding noise I think it's more than cleaning and re-oiling. The way it sounded I wouldn't be surprised to find some striped gears.

[Chuck Lutz]

Shelly, FIW.. I understood that graphite was used on the cables. Please confirm this.

[Mad Scientist]

Following the service manual is a good start.

There are two screws on the top over cover. These are easy to remove and the cover can be lifted off.

Then there are the seven screws that hold the frame of the instrument cluster to the dash, these are easy to remove.

Now with the nut removed from the odometer set control they tell you to carefully lift the instrument cluster and disconnect the drive cables to the speedometer and tach.

This maybe easier said the done as the instrument cluster was shoe horned into the dash. :( You may find you need to go into the engine compartment and loosen the tach and speedo cables so they will pull through easier.

Anyway once you have pried the cluster out you will then need to remove its mounting frame so that you can remove the gauge.

Oh also that yellow wire for the ammeter is clipped onto the back of the meter, there is no physical connection. But the direction that it is clipped on is important. Mark it in some way so you can put it back the same way.

[Nick DeSpirito]

Shelly,

I'm pretty sure my mechanic greased the speedometer and/or the tach cable without removing the cluster. He took the pod cover off, unscrewed the cable and pulled it out from inside of the car, greased it up and slid it back in. One of them was making noise. I don't know what he used, but here's a forum addressing it.

http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/spider-1966-up/22045-how-where-what-should-i-lubricate-my-speedometer-cable.html

[0bird2]

Shelly,
I have to agree with the answers you have been getting. The tach on our '57 T-Bird started doing the same thing, making noise, jumping around and sometimes just sqealing real loud. I removed the cable at both ends (easy to do on the Bird) and pulled the drive cable out of the housing and cleaned and regreased it with white lithium grease. It has been working fine for the past 6 or 7 years. With the Mark II cables being a little harder to get to, I would look for a lube that is made for flexible, housed cable. There are a lot of different apps that used this type of cable. I know Ford and Mopar both used cable drives on power seats in the '60's and up, and Ford used cables drive in the '57-'59 Skyliners and the '58-'66/67 T-bird and Lincoln convertibles. There may be a lube available thru a Ford or Mopar dealer that is specific to this type of cable.
Good Luck,

[Shelly Harris]

Thanks to all of you for the advice. This is another example of my getting so much more from the forum than I put in.

After thinking about it more.. I strongly think its a cable needing lubrication, and that's the first thing I'll do before trying to pull the instrument out of the cluster. I hope to get to this soon, but the weather is so lousy I can't drive the car on the streets.

[Shelly Harris]

OK lubing up the cable fixed it. Runs like new.

This is is an hour job if you've never done it before.

Disconnect the neg side of your battery.

Remove the top three screws from the instrument cluster hood and remove it.

Remove the nut holding the trip odometer control at the bottom of the dash. You don't have to remove the panel at the bottom of the dash which hold the light switch and antenna motor swiitch.

There are seven screws holding down the cluster. Remove them and then lift out the cluster a few inches. It kind of "shoe horn" fits. You can get it out several inches without disconnecting anything.

The speedometer cable has a nut which in my case was finger tight. Unscrew it and remove the cable from the instrument. You shoiuld now be able to easily pull the cable out of its housing. I lubed both the cable and housing using NAPA spray white lithium grease which is great to spray down the outside cable shield, and lithium white grease all over the cable. Put everything back. It runs like a charm.

Tips. I went to NAPA and asked the counter guy (who owns a yellow '54 Ford Convertible) what Ford used on the Speedo cable in the 50's, graphite or grease? He had no idea. So we settle on the white lithium.

When you pull out the cluster its easy to have the instrument bulbs fall out of their sockets, so watch that.

Also. it took me a 1/2 hour longer than necessary because after I replaced the cable I just laid the cluster back in the dash for a road test. During the test I discovered that with the headlights on the instrument lights failed, the red "low gas" arrow was lighted and the turn signal indicators were both on. I figured I must have really shorted something out. Turns out that all that cured itself when I screwed down the cluster. Obviously, unless it gets screwed down several circuits loose their ground. So don't panic when it happens.

Lastly, when I began the test run, the speedometer acted like it was still broke, but after 30 seconds or so it settled in nicely... so I guess it self lubed itself during the test.

If you also do the tach, there isn't as much slack in the cable as the speedo, but it's very doable if you want to grease that one too.

[Nick DeSpirito]

Good job Shelly. And thanks for the tutorial. :)

[Mad Scientist]

It is great that it turned out to be a simple and cheep fix.:)

[Mark_II_Mark]

Hemmings is full of speedo repair shops, but I think that Bob's has been around about the longest & does good work. The Clockworks is the place to send your clock for a cleaning or tune-up. Fast turnaround & good prices...

[Keith W Colonna]

The speedometer on a MKII I had never driven did not operate on the first trial run of the car. The odometer also did not work even after several miles although the reset knob did move it back to zero.
We took out the carpet, access panel in the floor hump and disengaged the drive cable where it connects to the trans. It was properly seated. We opened the instrument cluster, unscrewed the cable and confirmed that it was not broken and was sufficiently lubed. We reconnected it to the gauge and tried to drive it with a low RPM drill but the cable would bind and the gauge would not turn.
What is the problem???? I've heard that the drive gear in the speedo was orginallly nylon and that it was replaced by brass later. Can it be that this is stripped or bound and that I need to take it all out to evaluate?

[Barry Wolk]

I'm betting on a stripped gears and rock-hard lube.

[Keith W Colonna]

Barry,
I confirmed that the lube, at least in the cable tube is OK...so that leaves the speedo head itself. I just spoke with Lowell and he concurs that the gear may be stripped. I am trying to avoid taking the gauge itself out of the housing. It's a bird's nest back there and hard to access enough to see.
Thanks,
Keith

[Barry Wolk]

If I recall, it wasn't that difficult. Just remove the speedo and tach cable and remove the screws that hold the pod to the dash.

Be adventuresome. What's the worst that could happen?

Disconnect the battery first.

[Mad Scientist]

If as Barry mentioned if it just dirt gunky old grease, this you can fix it. I recently repaired my tachometer, it is the same mechanically except for the odometer and a dial plate. It comes out relatively easy and then you can easily remove the cover to take a peek inside. However at this point all you can do is give it a through cleaning and re-greasing as it was not designed to be disassembled. The input shaft has a “magnetic drive collar”(?) riveted to it that prevents its removal and the odometer is driven by a gear on this shaft. You should be able to see if they are any striped gears or if it just needs a good cleaning.

[Keith W Colonna]

Thanks Gentlemen,
I have my courage up now...so I'll attack the removal of the tach after lunch.

[Barry Wolk]

Do a pictorial on the removal. We'd all enjoy that.