Early odometer fixed - easy DIY
Discussion
Forgive me if this has been covered before, but I couldn't find anything on the subject other than people have send their speedos off to be repaired. I mentioned this briefly in the garage post but wanted to give more details:
My odometer abruptly stopped clicking noisily every tenth of a mile, and of course stopped racking up the miles. As an honest kinda guy, this became a priority and sending back to England from the States didn't appeal, so I thought I'd have a peak at the problem. Removal was easy, prying the bezel open to take the body of the speedo out was a piece of cake, so within 30 minutes or so I was at the dining table trying to understand the mechanism.
It turns out that it's very simple - a coil pulls down a lever that pushes a pawl that indexes the single mile wheel and simple gearing handles the rest. I discovered a small label that had strayed into the works and thought it must have been the culprit:
I put it back together and went for a spin, but still nothing. Back out again and I looked at the mechanism a little closer. I could see where the sticker came from because there was some glue residue on the lever. To cut a long story short, the sticker is actually aluminium, a bit like a chewing gum wrapper, and needs to complete a circuit for the coil to release once the lever has been pressed by the coil. The glue residue is probably a good insulator and prevented the coil from being released by the circuit. I cleaned the lever and superglued the sticker back on, then tried it out - now it clicks nice and loud every tenth again! Here's the sticker in the correct location:
I'm not sure how to quieten the clicks, but it seems inherent to the design. I may try wrapping the speedo in duct tape or something to see if that helps.
If your odometer has stopped or needs a whack to get going then I suspect this is a common cause, maybe in my case brought on by the extreme heat of North Carolina.
I hope this helps, if not at least I have something to refer to if I need to fix it again!
David
My odometer abruptly stopped clicking noisily every tenth of a mile, and of course stopped racking up the miles. As an honest kinda guy, this became a priority and sending back to England from the States didn't appeal, so I thought I'd have a peak at the problem. Removal was easy, prying the bezel open to take the body of the speedo out was a piece of cake, so within 30 minutes or so I was at the dining table trying to understand the mechanism.
It turns out that it's very simple - a coil pulls down a lever that pushes a pawl that indexes the single mile wheel and simple gearing handles the rest. I discovered a small label that had strayed into the works and thought it must have been the culprit:
I put it back together and went for a spin, but still nothing. Back out again and I looked at the mechanism a little closer. I could see where the sticker came from because there was some glue residue on the lever. To cut a long story short, the sticker is actually aluminium, a bit like a chewing gum wrapper, and needs to complete a circuit for the coil to release once the lever has been pressed by the coil. The glue residue is probably a good insulator and prevented the coil from being released by the circuit. I cleaned the lever and superglued the sticker back on, then tried it out - now it clicks nice and loud every tenth again! Here's the sticker in the correct location:
I'm not sure how to quieten the clicks, but it seems inherent to the design. I may try wrapping the speedo in duct tape or something to see if that helps.
If your odometer has stopped or needs a whack to get going then I suspect this is a common cause, maybe in my case brought on by the extreme heat of North Carolina.
I hope this helps, if not at least I have something to refer to if I need to fix it again!
David
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