1950s Speedometer still not working

[Daffer]

I recently disconnected my speedometer cable on my 1950 cadillac series 62 and re-greased it as it was making a weird noise and the needle would start to tick. So I greased it up and tested it and still it makes a weird sound and ticks I even tested it with a brand new cable so I'm assuming it's something in the speedometer cluster that may be broken, has anyone had this happen and can share some advise.
Thanks, Joshua

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

G'day Joshua,

There could be a couple of things going on here.

Firstly, the gear in the transmission could be wearing out, which I think is highly unlikely.

Secondly, the Odometer gearing in the Speedo Head could be suffering from lack of lubricant, or also wearing out the teeth.   Remember that this mechanical action is transferring the rotation of the speedo cable to 90 degrees and another 90 degrees to end up rotating the Odometer wheels at another 90 degree turn.

The Needle is not physically attached to the rotation of the speedo cable, but the cable turns a magnet, and this magnetism acts on the disc that is attached to the speedo needle shaft.

Any ticking sound has to be mechanical, unless it is caused by the speedo needle swinging viscously forwards and then backwards via the hairspring, hitting the stops.

Attached are some pictures from my '60 Speedo that suffered a slipping disc (the solder had come loose) and the Odometer Gears grease had become sticky, and placed too much pressure on the gears to wear the teeth away.

One thing you can try before ripping everything out is to obtain a second speedo cable, and attach that to the Speedo head, and with a battery drill, turn the inner cable from the other end and observe what the speedo is doing.  (Battery Drills are reversible, and revolution controllable)

The last picture is of a 1972 Speedo, with the main difference being that the later ones use plastic gears.   Plus, the different gearing was when I was converting the odometer from Imperial to Metric.

Bruce.

[Jeff Rosansky CLC #28373]

Had that issue with our 55. Ended up getting a new cable.
What I suggest is that you jack up the rear and spin the wheels and look at the cable at the speedo end. Is it turning? Mine wasn't. Replaced the cable and it was better.
Then our speedo did a lot of ticking and needle dancing. We just drove it and it seemed to work itself out.

Jeff R

[Daffer]

I recently disconnected my speedometer cable on my 1950 cadillac series 62 and re-greased it as it was making a weird noise and the needle would start to tick. So I greased it up and tested it and still it makes a weird sound and ticks I even tested it with a brand new cable so I'm assuming it's something in the speedometer cluster that may be broken, has anyone had this happen and can share some advise.
Thanks, Joshua

So this message is just an update, good news got it working! I figured out the problem to be that the drive tip of the cable had to much wiggle room on the inside of the cable enough to where I was able to pull a about a 1/4 of an inch out the transmission side. So when I tested it with a drill I had to push the cable inward while I ran it. My solution I bought #6s brass washers pulled the inner cable through and threaded it to the drive tip. Ended up needing 9 washers, but I tested it by pulling on it with the drill running and my speedometer didn't jump and made no nois, so I screwed it back to the transmission and did a successful test drive!
-Joshua

[Joe G 12138]

     It's nice to hear the happy ending! Thanks for posting the results and solution. So many people come to the Forum when they have a problem. But not as many come back when it's fixed. Thanks for passing this on!     Joe G