[Healeys] Speedo Info

[Bob Spidell]

There's been a lot of informative and helpful replies to my jumpy speedo 
problem, so I'd like to share what I've found.  Today, I dropped in my 
"backup" speedo that's geared for a 3.9 rear end.  It was steady and 
solid (well, at least as solid as any Healey speedo I've seen ;)  This 
indicated that the cable and right angle drive were OK, so I screwed up 
the courage to disassemble the jumpy speedo.  Besides some gunk from a 
rubber buffer that is apparently used to isolate the movement from the 
case (this stuff had turned gooey), there was no obvious problem.

So, I started turning the mechanism with a small screwdriver and lo and 
behold, it's binding at a regular interval.  On closer inspection, I 
noticed that one of the small gears that drive either the odometer or 
the trip meter had a radial crack and, sure enough, that's where the 
binding occurred.  Long story short, I believe the movement would bind 
every 10 or so turns of the cable, causing the cable to wind up then 
release when the binding area moved past the worm gear.

To my surprise, a drop of crazy glue and pressure from some needle nose 
pliers seems to have remedied the crack and subsequent binding, though 
probably not permanently.  Tomorrow, I'll try to get it all back 
together and see if the calibration is still close.

One mistake I made was to use electrical parts cleaner, instead of 
electronic circuits cleaner.  It removed some of the paint from my 
speedo needle and odometer and trip meter wheels.  Looks like a little 
fine painting is in order (anyone have any recommendations--seems like 
small model enamel should work well?).


bs

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Bob Spidell           San Jose, CA            bspidell at comcast.net
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