Speedo Cable Snags

R

Rovertron

Member
I'd sourced the problem with my dead speedo to a broken angle drive (the cable wound lug at the gearbox end had frayed to disintegration).

On replacing the drive, in a fiddly operation needing a ten year old's hand in the trans tunnel hole rather than my ham fists, I screwed the lot together.

Well it works of a fashion, the speedo was wildly up and down, then settled then stopped again. And stayed stopped.

Would lubing up the cable help? Say a healthy squirt of WD40 up the gearbox end so to speak. How about the dash connector end?

Or do I have a few hours of swearing and fiddling with a new cable to look forward to ?
 
What sort of state is the cable in? If it's looking ok then whip it out and lube it. If possible, remove the inner from the sheath and grease it taking care to leave to top 6" or so well alone or you risk the lube pumping along the cable and into the speedo, potentially runing it.
If you can't get the inner out then make a plasticine cup at the 'box end of the cable, fill it with light oil and allow it to flow into the cable over night.
Sounds like you could need a new cable mate, but make sure you lube that too.

Cheers,

DD.
 
Many thanks for the advice. I guess I'm trying to avoid a replacement more in hope as it must be wedged tight.

The plasticine cup is a good idea and oddly, calling a friend last night, they recommended something similiar, an orange squash bottle wedged onto the cable stop at the gearbox end and then partly filled with ATF was one cunning wheeze for his old mini's cable, the weight of the oil forcing it up the cable.

I'll have a play with the cable again, I'll definitely leave the speedo end alone for fear of wrecking the speedo as Series 1 dashpod are not the easiest thing to source.

But a new speedo cable is looking likely and then some serious faffing around trying to feed the thing through.

Oh well :(
 
Yet more aggro.

So, I lubed the cable with some ATF and playing with the cable it turns freely without any snags and I can get the speedo to operate turning the lug quickly between my fingers. So I can only assume the cable is now fine.

The angle drive was lubed up with a judicious spray of WD-40 and it is very smooth in operation.

However, assembling the lot together, nothing happens. The lug into the gearbox goes in fine, the speedo cable marries up nicely with the input to the angle drive.

Yet nothing.

So, I'm left with a couple of questions I hope someone can answer.

The input to the angle drive appears to be almost circular, relying on a retention screw to trap the speedo cable. I think this screw is not long enough to trap the speedo cable, hence no reading. Would a longer retention screw be the answer?

I'm really hoping the output from the box is fine, have they been known to fail ?

The only reassurance is it's worked before with the new angle drive but I'm totally stumped.

Can anyone help?
 
If its a V8s then I have had exactly that problem. The drive inside the gearbox failed. I never got round to fixing it as I have now converted to 5 spd.

Try turning the speedo drive in the gearbox to see if the gears are meshing positively.

Bennet
 
Yeah, this could be possible.

However, the angledrive input lug from the gearbox (which is cable wound) got trashed which was the source of the original problem so it would be unlikely. It worked fine right up to the point where the lug was twisted off.

I will try out trying to turn the output to see what happens.

This is a frustrating one to solve.
 
should a series 1 2000 sc have an angle drive on the gearbox? I have one on the back of my strip speedo but not 1 on the box, this could explain why it keeps coming loose. Any ideas?
 
As far as I'm aware, the BW35 autobox definitely does as does the BW65 (which is a different part).

As for the manual gearboxes, I don't know.

There is an input at the back of the strip speedo , the speed cable itself has a thumbwheel type connector to thread the cable onto the speedo unit. Taking the blasted unit out though is very fiddly, it is best to remove the upper shelf, unscrewing the interior A-post vinyl covers first, then unbolting the shelf from the underneath, that then slides off quite easily.

I finally fixed the problem with mine, the angle-drive itself was faulty, I exchanged it and the angle drive input for the cable was meant to be square not round !
 
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