Speed Warning - Back from the Dead

[davepl]

I bought a speed warning cluster from member John H a couple of weeks back, then promptly destroyed it because I took the needle assembly too far apart. I know masking isn't perfect, but if you find yourself in this position, mask it, don't blow it apart.

Anyhow, TBONE the gauge specialist member was a huge help. First he had a spare needle assembly. I almost ruined that one too because I wanted to airbrush the needle... so I took it apart, just not as far. Take my advice, having done it twice: don't take it apart. I managed to get it painted and back on, but I have literally days into it.

Anyhow, the odometer was all yellowed. Tried to clean it without success, so I decided to transfer my original over. For some reason internally I discovered the thousands digit was locked at 6. And indeed, the truck has 76XXX miles on the odometer. I bet it just stuck at 76K and wrapped around perpetually every 1000 miles.

Tried to take that apart and fix it, but could never find the problem. I decided to then pull an odometer out of my Pontiac stash. Had to shorten the shaft a little but otherwise seemed to interchange. The little plastic retainer had shattered but I didn't need to make a new one because this speedo head has the full rail for each odometer digit tab (some have a gap for the thousands and rely on the plastic thing).

Sadly, when I pulled the face of the speedo all 6 little gears for setting the speed warning and some shims fell right out, as they're actually retained by the face. TBONE to the rescue again as he was able to send me a photo showing the correct gear layout.

Once back together, I found the speed warning aspect didn't actually work. Just oxidation after all these years I guess, as I was able to clean up the spring contact with some laquer thinner and use some emory cloth on the pin of the speed warning needle contact and now its consistent and accurate.

So, long story short, I'll soon have it done. I'll post a photo of the whole cluster eventually. In the photo it looks like the base of the yellow needle is unpainted or a different color, but it's just the angle of the photo.