[Alpines] Speedometer questions

[Marc James Small]

At 01:23 AM 4/18/2008, Mark J Bradakis wrote:
 >So we have this Alpine in the shop, Series V, I think (I'm a Triumph
 >guy, what do I know? )  The owner says the speedo reads too low,
 >following a car doing 55 mph his reads 42 mph, roughly 75% of
 >what it should.
 >
 >It appears to have the original 3.89 ratio final drive.  It takes 4.25
 >revolutions of the driveshaft to make the speedo cable complete
 >one revolution.  The numbers on the Jaeger speedo are 5324/50 1020.
 >
 >The owner claims that the speedo was redone by Nissonger recently.
 >The cable turns freely, no kinks, no binding.
 >
 >Any ideas why the speedo reads so much lower?

This Speedometer seems to have been intended for
a 4:22 rear-axle Alpine.  This was the alternate
setting.  I don't have time at the nonce to dig
out my archive of Rootes Group parts manuals
(shucks, I have a LOT of these) but will do so if this would be helpful.

Operating from memory, which is always dangerous,
I believe that a lot of Alpine IV's came with the
4:22 rear end and all Alpine V's did so, but I
certainly could be wrong.  My Alpine literature
is buried at the bottom of a stack of boxes and I
just had to exhume it to answer a query over on
the Tiger List about stock wheels.

It would seem that you have a 4:22 speedo fitted
to a 3:89 rear-end.  Again, I will be happy to
dig out the literature if this would help.

It would help us if you would  provide the body
s/n.  A Series V, of course, certainly could have
a 3:89 rear axle for a number of reasons.

Marc


msmall at aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b`s fir gun ghr`s fir!