Speedo/Odometer repair

[Goatnut]

My odometer seems to be hanging up at XXX9.9. It has difficulties rolling to the next mile and affects how the speedo operates. it snaps past the catch and the needle fluctuates by a 10-20 mph amount depending on the speed.

Has anyone experienced this and can it be fixed?

[Clyde65]

sounds like you speedo cable is bad/dry

[Bears63]

Two issues. Lube up the speedo cable and pull the panel out and lube the gears on the speedometer. Things are getting dried out and binding up and the next thing that will happen is something will break and you won't have a speedo.

[Goatnut]

the milage was xx39.9 on the odometer and probably did not work for a least the last twenty miles. However, today it cleared itself and the odometer is working and the needle is not ..."spiking" anymore. Maybe it was having a hard time turning over all three numbers to 40.0??

This makes me pretty sure it is not the cable now. I will check it out for a while but I think I will still need to tear it apart and clean/lube the Odometer.

[Bears63]

It had a hard time turning because it's binding up. It needs lubrication on the gears. The speedometer is hooked to the odometer using plastic gears that need to be kept greased. If they are not lubricated they will eventually start binding and continual binding leads to the gears breaking or stripping. When you pull the panel to lube the speedometer it just is good practice to do the cable as well.

[Clyde65]

What Bears said^^^^

[awbrown]

One way to tell if it is the cable or not is use a cordless drill with a tap in it backwards so that the square on the tap drives the speedo.. if while running the drill and driving the speedo it operates smoothly through all the range that the drill will run with out the needle bouncing then you can be sure it is the cable ... the right length cable is also important , if some one replaced it with a cable that is too long or is kinked somewhere it will be trouble too...

[Goatnut]

OK I finally had time to tear the dash out. I got my first look at the inerds of a speedo.



In this picture below I have pulled the pin on the odometer shaft and lifted it up enough to show the thin metal pieces between each diget/roller on the odometer. The odometer was just a little sicky between each roller and the metal causing enough resitance to foul my odometer. I got them cleaned up, lubed and back together. I got about 20 miles on the clock for a test drive and all is Good again!

[Rooster's 67]

Dont be rolling mileage off......that's illegal.

lol

[Larry64]

Goatnut. What did you use to lube the speedometer?
Thanks Larry

[Goatnut]

Larry,

I used "Tri-flow-super lubricant". I think it is made by Sherwin Williams. I did not used very much because the numbers seamed a little fragile. There were small paint chips coming off so i did not want to handle it much. I just used very little and gently masaged the rollers and steel shims. Looking back I probably could and should have used a little more and spent some time working it in better.

The Odometer works great now. At first it did get hung up occasionally though. I have been driving the truck daily for the last three months or so and I have put about 1500 miles on it. I just rolled past 30K so all of the rollers have had a chance to "roll over" and I have not had a hickup in the last 8-900 miles. I think just continuing to drive the truck has helped.

[Larry64]

Thanks Goatnut.
Larry

[THENEWMEXICAN]

So I had the same problem, took a look at everything and found that my cable running to the drivetrain isn't plugged into anything... Anyone have any pictured on what mine is supposed to look like down there? I can't make it to a junkyard till Friday or Saturday...