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I may be a moron....

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spineguru

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This may be the least technical question ever asked on this forum, but how do you reset the trip odometer on a TR3? There does not seem to be one of this convenient little push buttons. And if you can't adjust it, then how can mine read 517.5 when the last three digits of the main odometer are 218? Somehow they became different.

Thanks.
 

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There is (or should be) a push rod coming out the bottom of the speedometer and which comes through a hole in the bottom of your dashboard below the speedo. You push the rod up to engage a gear inside. Then you rotate the bottom end of this protruding pushrod. Turning it in one direction will reset the trip odometer to zero. Turn it the other way and you can advance the trip mileage a few tenths or more if you have the time and the need. Such as adding a bit of mileage if you are on a rally and the trip reads a bit low as you arrive at an instruction. Keeping it pushed up will make the trip mileage sit there without advancing the digits. As when your trip mileage already reads the rally figure for the next corner instruction and you can see the turn a few hundred feet ahead of you. When you get to the turn, you release the pushrod and continue with the corrected trip reading.

Don Elliott, Original Owner, 1958 TR3A

https://www.britishcarforum.com/ubbthreads/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/1920/ppuser/4127
 
Bryan-

If you are missing the push rod, just pm me as I think I have a spare one from a bad speedo around here somewhere. It is held in place by a very tiny screw so it may be that it just dropped off. Pretty sure you will have to pull the speedo out of the dash to fix it if is missing, or else you would need to be a contortionist.

Or you could just give up on the whole thing and bring it back here to Houston where I would be glad to take it off your hands... Nice car!

Randy.
 
That screw is really very tiny. Sometimes the push rod extension can be held in place by a wire with the strength and diameter of a paperclip where you clip it to length, bend one end 90 degrees up, insert it and bend the other end down in th opposite direction. This may work unless it gets tangled up with the vinyl around the hole in the bottom of the dashboard.
 
Thanks, guys. I am away from home, so I will have to check this weekend, but I do not think that I have the feature described. But atleast I now know where to look. If anyone can take a close up digital picture, that will also help me out.

Thanks.
 
You've probably got the feature but not the device to implement it. Feel along the lip of the dash and there should be a hole. Or it might be covered with vinyl if the previous owner re-did the dash. Or your tach and spedo might be in the wrong places. Plenty of possibilities.

Don't worry - you'll figure it out once you poke your head under there, bang it on the steering column, pinch your fingers in the door... etc etc etc... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
There has to be at least one hole. My early TR3A TS 27489 LO came with one hole for this. When they realised that with left hand drive cars in Europe or North America, the navigator couldn't read the trip odometer, it was so far over to the left. So when they changed the speedo to the right position so the navigator could read it more easily, they added a 2nd hole. They did not delete the first hole. So late TR3As have a hole in the bottom flange of the dash under both positions.

Don Elliott, Original Owner, 1958 TR3A

https://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trebor/don3a_big.JPG (taken at VTR in 2001)
 
Thanks, Don. The picture is perfect. I will check for the hole when I get home. I definitely do not have the little knob, but at least I know where to look now.

Thanks, again.
 
It took me forever to figure out what the knob did! Finally I was turning it and just happened to see the miles changing.
 
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