Can my speedometer be fixed?

[MSN Member]

From: lorielorief   
Sent: 2/8/2006

I just recently purchased a 71 D-20. I would like to know if anyone knows how to fix a speedometer. When I drove it home, I had no idea how fast I was going without the speedometer,( the needle appears to be missing, but all the other gauges work), a friend following said I was doing 80 at times! I'm glad it runs strong and smooth, but I don't want to be speeding or get a ticket, so I think I should fix the speedometer. Has anyone here done that before? Thanks, Lorie

[denisondc]

From: denison   
Sent: 2/8/2006 7:05 PM

lorielorief; Speedometer not working. Its possible to get speedometers fixed, there are businesses that do it for the antique car collector crowd, but its sort of expensive. So if you can find a new or used mopar speedo, it might be lots cheaper. The same type of 'straight line' speedometer was used in mopar trucks, vans, and pickups, from the early 60s on up through about 1973, and might be available across a counter at a good auto parts place. Perhaps a NAPA parts store, or even a Chrysler dealer. The speedos came with two types of connections for the speedometer cable, the push-on type, and the threaded-type. The threaded type is what you would need. I have bought such a speedo on ebay. Actually I bought two of them, and both of them would fit my dashboard. One of them reads to 100 mph, as the original does, the other reads to 120 mph. I did an ebay search for 'mopar speedo' and 'mopar speedometer' and 'mopar instrument cluster'. Did the odometer indicate the miles going by? If it didn’t, you might have a broken speedo cable. It is possible to get universal replacement cables, but buying the complete cable with its outer housing is harder to find.
A salvage yard would probably want you to buy the entire instrument cluster containing the speedometer, if not the dashboard insert that has the switches as well. The extra parts might come in handy. If you get a used one, you should put a tiny amount of lube on the rotating shaft of the speedo, and make sure there is NO dust in the speedo mechanism itself. That might be why the original needle snapped off.

Anytime you have your speedometer out, is a good time to pull the speedo cable up from its housing (amazing how long it is). Then disconnect the bottom end of the housing at the back of the tranny, and dribble gasoline or solvent down the housing, putting the cable in and spinning it; then repeat. You will likely get a puddle of black rusty crud on the ground. Then you should lube the inside of the cable housing - I used 3-in-1 oil, and Lightly coat the cable itself with something like Vaseline. With its bottom end still not reconnected, the speedo cable should spin easily with your fingers. Even in cold weather. I did this to my winnie's speedo cable in 91, and again in 2001.

[RayCameron]

Hi, in December we bought into the Winnebago sean with a Elandan. I only recently noticed that the Speedometer was reading higher than actual speed. The only reason I noticed at all was we recently got a new toy,,, a Garmin GPS thing.... while we familiarised our selves with it in our other two cars I thought it remarkable how accurate the MPH feature it has next to the map was... Until we got it in our bago... Ehhhh this thing is off by about 10mph..
   The bago registers like it's going faster than it is, sometimes as much as 12 mph. I was wondering if you needed a speedometer in a pinch and thought you might need a mapper thing you could just use that as your MPH... very accurate but you would have to remember to take it with you and probably plug it in. I wonder if my odometer is off as well........?? :-X