Round Peg / Square Hole (Std / Spc speedo swap)

[daddy-O]

Square peg in a round hole

Square peg in a round hole
Very interesting thread. And, very nice work. But, why? I'm "ole skool" and like "Round Stuff" like head lights, gauge sets, and etc. on motorcycles & girls

I have a nice 79 XS1100F with the original "Square Stuff" (160mph/10Krpm). Rocky just sent me a very nice set of round gauges (85mph/10krpm) in shiny chrome cups and a chrome headlight and ears off of a XS1100 Special. Also, Rocky sent me all the mounting hardware and triple tree from the same bike.

Now, following your example ... can I put the square 160mph in the Special round can? First pass of the Face Measurements look tight but possible. Per your photos the speedometer mechanism - once out of the square can looks small enough. Internal mounting points, knobs, and drive cable might be issues. I'm guessing that with care I can trim the face from square to round.

What say you?

[BA80]

You can get a 160 MPH speedometer from a 79 special and it'll fit right in there. OR, you can do as I have and get a round speedometer from a XS 750, which also slips right in there, that goes to 140 MPH ( much more plentiful and cheap on flea bay). I've never seen over 130 on my bike anyway.

You just have to look close at the pics when buying, there are 2 different faces on the 750 speedometers. One will match the tach on our special gauges but there is also a hideous green faced one. Trust me, you DON'T want one of those.

[BA80]

OH! BTW, I meant to also say that if you put the special triple tree on a standard you need to put special forks on there too.

The triple trees are at a different trailing angle and standard forks will be REALLY squirrely paired with special.

Note the difference where the axle mounts on each. There is a reason.

[3Phase]

Nice work!

Just a quick note for the next one: the trip meter knob unscrews, it's a left-hand thread. If it's stuck and it won't come out before you remove the face plate you can use a small pair needlenose pliers or hemostats to hold the metal shaft for the trip meter and unscrew the plastic knob.

Yes, I pretty thoroughly shredded a speedometer too before I found the trick to removing the knob without cutting anything.

.

[GLoweVA]

Nice work!

Just a quick note for the next one: the trip meter knob unscrews, it's a left-hand thread. If it's stuck and it won't come out before you remove the face plate you can use a small pair needlenose pliers or hemostats to hold the metal shaft for the trip meter and unscrew the plastic knob.

Yes, I pretty thoroughly shredded a speedometer too before I found the trick to removing the knob without cutting anything.

.

Nice tip Scott, I wish I had known that before I tore it apart.
It's alright, it was just an experiment to see if it'd work.
The whole reason was that the square (standard) speedos are basically one of a kind. (XS1100 only 78-81) While the special (round) ones (including the 850/750/650s) can be found aplenty.
SO, I wanted to see if a round speedo guts would fit into the square hole.
(plus my standard speedo ate itself)

Now to answer Daddy's question:

can I put the square 160mph in the Special round can?

I think you could, but you'd have to use the square cover plate that has the numbers on the circumfrence of the hole otherwise you wouldn't know how fast you were going. That said, then you'd have to trim that square piece into a circle to fit inside the face glass/cover.

I wondered, WHY? Then I thought about it, The 160mph round speedo is the rarest of all the XS11 speedos. (only put on the 79 specials) Whereas the 78 & 79 standards came with the square 160mph speedos. Now, some have figured out that these are worth some $ to those who really want them, but if you search you CAN find them.


OR You could get a 750/650 round speedo that goes to 140 and bolt it right in:
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36699

Note: watch out for the slightly smaller ones that only go to 120mph. I ended up buying one (I think it was from a XS400) and it's just a little smaller. Enough to notice bolted up next to my full sized tach.