[Healeys] Spedo/Cable/Angle Drive - BJ8

Earl Kagna kags at shaw.ca
Sun Jul 26 20:57:31 MDT 2009


Gents:

Further to this:  I'll recount the experience of a friend of mine with his 
BJ8 a few years ago.  This is with a newly refurbished instrument from a 
reliable source in the UK.

Speedo stopped working after some time in the car.  Diagnosis determined 
that speedo head / cable seemed to be in good shape.  Turned out that the 
short cable end of the angle drive was toast.  New angle drive installed, 
everything worked - for a short while.

Same exercise, same fix, another new angle drive.  This happened yet again 
shortly thereafter.

It was at this point that by buddy remembered / confessed that the speedo / 
odo was not correctly recording the distance - it was erratic - something 
like 50% of the mileage actually recording.

After yet another angle drive was destroyed, we finally took the speedo head 
out of the car and opened it up.  A little fiddling and eureka!  One of the 
springs governing the lever that ratchets the set of wheels forward was 
completely missing.  This caused the little lever to miss the tooth on the 
wheel and not advance the dials on occasion.  When we attempted to reverse 
the cable, the lever jammed solid - enough to destroy the weakest component 
in the system - the angle drive's short cable.  A spring from another speedo 
(actually from an MGB) solved the problem permanently.  Apparently when the 
car was put in reverse to back up, the loose lever jammed on occasion, and 
poof went the angle drive.

As Michael says, resistance in the instrument itself doesn't have to be 
great to smoke the angle drive - we proved it.  Anyone want about 6 
repairable angle drives?

Earl Kagna
Victoria, B.C.
BT7 tri-carb
BJ8



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Salter" <msalter at precisionsportscar.com>
To: "'Peter Schauss'" <schauss at worldnet.att.net>; "'R. Price Lindsay'" 
<price at advocateadvisors.com>; <healeys at autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Spedo/Cable/Angle Drive - BJ8


Actually it has been my experience that angle drive failure can often be
traced to a tight or seized component in the speedometer itself, frequently
either the odometer or trip meter tumblers.
Inserting a small flat blade screwdriver into the cable socket and spinning
it anticlockwise (as I recall) to simulate forward movement of the car will
often reveal that the drive tightens up after a short period of operation.

Michael Salter


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