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Speedo maintenance

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drooartz

drooartz

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Okay, so I just picked up a Bugeye speedo on eBay. It looks to be in good shape, and I can even get the front bezel off easily. It's supposed to be in full working order as well (unlike my original one). What should I do to clean/grease or otherwise prep this to go into the car. While it's on my desk, I'd like to make sure I give it a good going through.

This also should give me some knowledge so I can eventually go through my original one and get it working as well. I'm committed now (or should be), I'm starting to gather spare parts... /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
Understand clean like a watch, and use some watch oil on the pivits, nothing on the face but water and qtips, no rubbing only dabing, do not touch the pointer to clean except for the chrome button, winddex on a qtip.
 
My suggestion, find yourself one of those bits that has the square end on it for putting screws in trailers and things and chuck it up to a battery powered drill. put a dab of oil on the bearing where the cable connects up and put the drill square bit into the speedo and spin it with the face pointed down so the oil soaks in. Then raise the speedo up to level (like it was in the dash) and spin it on fast and see that it works correctly and not jumping around. If it jumps you might have something rubbing inside.
 
I just did a tach and speedo over the weekend. The speedo was caked with grease on the balance wheel and needed serious help. I took it apart, needle and face came off.
Like Jack said, use only water or diluted windex to clean the face. I hit mine with Armour-all to make it shine a bit too.
I repainted the needle as mine was a bit yellowed with age, just mask off the black and spray the tip with Krylon white or use some white out or a white paint pen.
Since my guts were really greasy, I cleaned them with spray brake clean, don't even think about this with the face on or the face will disappear. This got the grease off the balance wheel and out of the gears. Some 3-in-1 oil on the gears and in the cable hole and I ran it with a drill a while. Then I let it sit cable hole down overnight so any excess oil drained out. Painted the housing inside with light blue and a nickle outside and it looks like new. Works too.
I also found a tab from the ignition light tube must have broken off at some point and was stuck under the balance wheel, probably why it didn't work in the first place. And any grease on that wheel will give a funky reading.
 
Thanks for the tips. It will be interesting to take the new one apart and see how it all ticks. Once I've got this one working, I'll be more confident to tackle my original one and get it back into top shape.

I assume the speedo needle comes off like the tach one does, with a fork and some light pressure. Do I need to mark the mechanical position for reassembly?

I've got a non-functioning tach coming from eBay as well, ready for an electronic tach swap. That should be fun, too. Tunebug may actually have a full complement of working gauges this year. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
That's a great article, thanks!
 
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