Speedo Wiggle

I had the car out today, and noticed that the speedo needle was shaking violently. It barely moves at all below about 30 mph. I did a search and found posts from John Corbani and jselevan that describe removing and lubing / replacing the cable. I understand that if the conduit for the cable has been breached, allowing contamination, I'm in deep doo-doo. Two questions:

Is it necessary to completely remove the speedometer to access / remove the cable?

When the new / freshly lubed cable is reinserted, will there be any problems getting it to re-engage at the drive end?

 

Dino Dan - While not imperative to remove the speedo to gain access to the cable, it will make it a great deal easier. And no, there is no difficulty in mating the drive end of the cable to the transmission drive fitting. It will slip in easily, and in the worse case, may require you to twist the speedo end of the cable with your fingers until the drive end slips in.

I suggest that you find a 3.5 mm Allen wrench (or is it 3mm?) and remove the steering wheel from the steering wheel hub. Then simply unscrew the four knurled finger screws at each corner of the instrument cluster. Then retract the instrument cover with the instruments a few inches to allow you to reach in and unscrew the speedo cable from the speedometer. Place a towel over the steering column, and lay the instrument pod onto the towel-covered steering column.

Simply pull out the cable, taking care to avoid getting grease everywhere. Wind it into a coil approximately 30 cm in diameter to facilitate removing it out of the car without it springing everywhere.

Regrease and reinsert. Easy. A 1 hour job (the second time).

Jim S.

 

Thanks Jim. I'll do it next weekend.

Dan

 

Dan - one additional thought. A bit of a hassle, but I suggest disconnecting the battery before swinging out the instrument cluster. The amp meter leads are direct leads to the battery. If they should brush up against anything while you swing the instrument cluster out you might dirty your seat.

Jim S.

 

That sounds like a worthwhile precaution. Thanks again.

 

Hi Dan; Hi Jim S.
I recently had the speedo disconnected on two different Dino models & had to resort to two different methods.

1. On my friend's Tipo M, there was not sufficient slack in the cable housing to pull the instrument panel rearwards far enough to reach in with my hand to do the deed. After loosening the four knurled screws/bolts and moving the panel as far as possible, I had to step out and assume the position on my knees, lean in over the left door sill, snake my left hand (it'd be the right hand, in the case of your right-hooker!) up from under the dash and, with my fingertips, find & unscrew the cable 'cap' (luckily, it wasn't tight). Reconnecting was a be-otch. I had to peek between the instrument panel & the dash while lining up the cable & threading (being careful not to cross-thread!) the cap (again with my fingertips) onto the post on the back of the speedometer. 'tightened it as much as my 'finger-grips' would allow. Yikes!

2. On my Tipo E -- piece o' cake. The cable had sufficient slack to pull the instrument panel towards me far enough to sit in the driver's seat and reach through the dash opening/over the panel to easily access the cable cap. Easy Money!

Now, Dan, while you have the battery disconnected & the back of the gauges accessible, take the time to accomplish a safety-related task. Loosen one screw at a time on each of the ammeter's connectors, remove each heavy wire (lead) from its respective post, clean the tarnish off of both, then re-attach & tighten securely. A great deal of resistance builds up over the decades: Resistance begets Heat begets Fire! I'm sure you recall previous discussions about this hot topic!

Good luck,
Coop

 

Coop:

Thanks for the further elaboration and the tip regarding the ammeter. (For that, I'll try using fine-grain sandpaper, followed up with alcohol.) I'll try to get some pictures of the entire procedure and post them here. My car's an 'E', thankfully.

Is there any particular type of grease that should be used on the cable? I'd rather not have to do this again for at least another 35 years.

Dan

 

Dan,
Here's a quick read that fine-tunes your trouble-shooting & suggests "...non-migrating grease, preferably lithium-based."

http://www.speedometershop.com/faq.html

I saved this page for future reference. Good stuff, Maynard!
Coop

 

Coop - excellent recommendation concerning the contact resistance at the amp meter. Definitely worth removing the heavy gauge wires and using fine sandpaper to reduce the contact resistance. Then, as you suggest, retightening firmly with the appropriate star-lock washer.

Next time you are forced to disconnect the speedo cable, you might try tugging on the cable to provide more slack. I have found that the cable, running behind the windshield wiper motor, diving down towards the driver wheel well, and behind the splash guard, has a fair amount of excess that could be pulled by hand and thus provide more movement at the speedo.

Jim S.

 

Thanks, on both accounts, Jim S.

Regarding the resistance, I was just passing on some good info from previous electro discussions on FerrariChat. 'thought Dan might have missed them.

And, I do have more behind-the-scenes work to do on the Tipo M, so I'll apply a bit more force on the speedo cable & see if I can get some working room. It's likely hung up on something & cautiously more aggressive pushin' & pullin' might just do the trick. The cable's tough enough to take it; I just don't want to damage whatever is causing resistance (Huh? Ah, the subterfuge of the English language!).

Later,
Coop

 

'gotta have a picture to brighten up the discussion, Gents.

This one was taken a bit further along in my process. I had to remove the dash pod to spray an even application of suede dye on the mouse hair. In this car, the fuzz is quite...fuzzy! However, it had suffered water staining & had waxed sorta mottled mocha. I had to pull the pod to gain access to the dash at the base of the windscreen & to shoot the top/front of the pod. Credit Pietro, a.k.a. ENZOSON, for recommending Moneysworth & Best Suede Renew (Black). The result was really quite good: Not too black, matte 'finish.'

At any rate, you can see the black speedo cable with the swatch of blue painter's tape covering the cap. No slack there! 'hope your suggestion works, Jim S..

Coop
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Well, I'm more than halfway there. So far everything has gone smoothly, except that the clock's bezel broke free from the body (cheap old plastic throughout) under the strain of removing the panel. Not a big deal, as it hasn't run in about 20 years. It did delay the completion of the job, as I had to epoxy and clamp the pieces together and will let it set up overnight. I did look into a replacement quartz clock from Dinoparts, but decided to stick with the non-working status quo after seeing the price.

The speedo cable came out easily. I thoroughly cleaned the old grease off and applied the new lithium grease as I fed it back in. The feeding in requires progressively more effort the further in the cable goes (as one would expect), but it's not at all difficult. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to reconnect it, as I want to get the clock back in first.

Ammeter leads were cleaned with sandpaper and alcohol and reconnected. They actually didn't look too bad.

I'll report on the final outcome tomorrow.

Dan

 

Dan - failure of the plastic around the clock bezel is rather common. Mine did it as well. I took some black electrical tape and gently-firmly stretched it circumferentially around the bezel and plastic to keep everything in place. Once back in the metal plate (panel) one cannot tell that anything has occurred.

Jim S.

 

Everything's back together. The only problem is that I can't test it as the rain is coming down in buckets here today.

 

SPEEDO IS FIXED!!

Many thanks to Jim S. & Coop. I couldn't (and wouldn't) have done it without your help.

Dan

 

Dan - happy to help. Did it stop raining? Were you able to see if your effort resulted in a stable speedo?

Jim S.

 

Yes, the rain stopped. Speedometer needle is steady. Thanks again.

 

'way to go. There's another project you can check off of your 'To Do' list.

I just read about how one of the 308 guys pulled his cable from underneath. He disconnected it at the trans & pulled it out/checked/freshened then snaked it back in while standing under the car. As long as a lift is available, that might be a less messy...make that, less chance of gettin' grease all over everything...way to approach it. (Hmmm, since my car is up on the rack for CV boots, water pump & hoses, heat shields, intercooler hoses and brake fluid flush/bleed, maybe I oughta pull the cable.)

Oh well, a moot point for you, Dan. Hopefully, you've seen the last of your cable.

Cheers,
Coop

 

Yes, if it goes another 35 years, it likely won't be my problem. It is messy, and I did get manage to get one small dollop of (new) grease on the bottom protruding edge of the instrument cluster housing. Nothing serious.

 

I'd like to add 2 suggestions to this thread.

1. After you grease the cable, coil it up in a gallon size zip lock bag with just the tranny end poking out of the barely unzipped top. Helps keep the grease off your seat, shirt and mouse hair.

2. Before inserting the cable back in, give a squirt of motorcycle cable lube with the little red straw attachment.

Now if I can only get all 4 knurled screws back in the dash......