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Uhg! My 79F broke it's original speedo cable at the 64,000 mark. No problem, a quick replacement and I would be good to go! Unfortunately, that cable lasted a whole 20 miles before it broke just like the original one... Two other cables (plus one additional new housing as one of the broken cables trashed the first new housing), I decided I pretty much had to dig into my prized, 160mph speedo...
I grabbed one of the many paint can openers I had in the shop and fairly quickly was able to bent the flange back just enough to get the housing out of the lens. This part actually went easier than I expected...
Once inside, I quickly found the source of my problems: lots of "crap" inside the bell itself. The rest of the speedo was VERY clean, so I was very surprised to find as much junk in the spinning part as I did! Some careful cleaning/degreasing/relubing latter, things where looking VERY good inside there and the needle was moving very smoothly under the power of one of my drills. While inside, I also cleaned up the tripometer (don't as me why, but the odometer was spotless, but there was all KINDS of crap on the tripometer!) with some odorless mineral spirits and also painted the VERY faded needle a nice, bright day-glo orange.
Calibration was fun. I had to remove the tripometer to get the speedo out of the housing (reset button would NOT budge), which meant I had to pull the needle off (I know...) so I could remove the face plate. When I put it back together, I had a bit of an epifiny: If I left the face plate off, I could take it out and compare the indicated speed with a GPS and then tweak the needle's position until I was happy with it.
It took four tries to hit the mark. Originally, the bike was fairly accurate at low speeds (30 mph or less), but read faster and faster the quicker you went. At 75, it indicated 85... When I was finally happy with the calibration, it read a bit slow down low (5 mph off at 10 mph, 4 mph off at 20, etc to 1 mph off at 50 mph) but was reading dead on from 60 mph to 80 mph. I would ASSUME it was start to read slow at even higher speeds, but that doesn't matter to me.
The final job was to get the lens back on. I was able to get it to slip back over the housing with a bit of persuasion and a very thin screw driver to "walk the edge" around the flange. Then, I used a short piece of hardwood dowel rod to slowly work the flange back home. I was about 1/3 the way down, when I decided to check front again.
And then I discovered the needle had come off! Even after I pressed it on as hard as I was comfortable with before putting the face back on! So, I get to do it all again: work the flange back out, remove the lens, remount the naked speedo and go calibrate it, etc.
Only this time, I need to make a tool so I can tap the needle ALL the way on without damaging the needle itself. Preferably BEFORE I start to put the lens back on this silly thing! Fun, fun, fun!
I grabbed one of the many paint can openers I had in the shop and fairly quickly was able to bent the flange back just enough to get the housing out of the lens. This part actually went easier than I expected...
Once inside, I quickly found the source of my problems: lots of "crap" inside the bell itself. The rest of the speedo was VERY clean, so I was very surprised to find as much junk in the spinning part as I did! Some careful cleaning/degreasing/relubing latter, things where looking VERY good inside there and the needle was moving very smoothly under the power of one of my drills. While inside, I also cleaned up the tripometer (don't as me why, but the odometer was spotless, but there was all KINDS of crap on the tripometer!) with some odorless mineral spirits and also painted the VERY faded needle a nice, bright day-glo orange.
Calibration was fun. I had to remove the tripometer to get the speedo out of the housing (reset button would NOT budge), which meant I had to pull the needle off (I know...) so I could remove the face plate. When I put it back together, I had a bit of an epifiny: If I left the face plate off, I could take it out and compare the indicated speed with a GPS and then tweak the needle's position until I was happy with it.
It took four tries to hit the mark. Originally, the bike was fairly accurate at low speeds (30 mph or less), but read faster and faster the quicker you went. At 75, it indicated 85... When I was finally happy with the calibration, it read a bit slow down low (5 mph off at 10 mph, 4 mph off at 20, etc to 1 mph off at 50 mph) but was reading dead on from 60 mph to 80 mph. I would ASSUME it was start to read slow at even higher speeds, but that doesn't matter to me.
The final job was to get the lens back on. I was able to get it to slip back over the housing with a bit of persuasion and a very thin screw driver to "walk the edge" around the flange. Then, I used a short piece of hardwood dowel rod to slowly work the flange back home. I was about 1/3 the way down, when I decided to check front again.
And then I discovered the needle had come off! Even after I pressed it on as hard as I was comfortable with before putting the face back on! So, I get to do it all again: work the flange back out, remove the lens, remount the naked speedo and go calibrate it, etc.
Only this time, I need to make a tool so I can tap the needle ALL the way on without damaging the needle itself. Preferably BEFORE I start to put the lens back on this silly thing! Fun, fun, fun!
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