64 Speedometer Noise

[Paul K.]

Hi All, 

Happy New Year. 

 

My 64 speedo is noisy and erratic mostily after the car sits after long periods. Sometimes its quiet but its always a little jumpy.  Before it zeroes coming to a stop, it "growls"  and sounds very rough.  I've read the threads I could find here and I want to clarify I have to remove the cable from the top, assuming that lubing is the first thing to try? Can I remove the cable separate from the housing as possible on other makes? BTW, my dash pad is removed right now for an unrelated repair. Here is a YT video of the noise.  Thanks! 

 

 

[telriv]

Paul,

 

   Unscrew the cable from the back of the speedo. Take note of how much inner cable sticks out from the outer cable & put a mental pic. of it in your mind.  Remove the inner cable from the speedo cable by pulling it out with a pair of needle nose pliers.   The inner cable should come out fairly easily. IF there is resistence at the speedo inner cable the outer cable may be kinked.  Look at it to make sure. With the noise that its making the inner cable needs to be cleaned & greased. At this point you would be best served to remove the end of the cable at the trans. Squirt some Brakleen into the outer casing. Then spray carb. cleaner into the outer casing & insert the the inner cable back into the outer casing & spin it with your fingers for a period of time.  You could ALSO use an electric drill to help spin the cable a little faster.  What we are trying to do is to clean out as much old grease as possible. Depending on how dirty the inner & outer sheating is you may want to try removing the inner cable again & spray it with carb. cleaner again & spraying brakeen in it also to flush & dry the casing. After you are satisfied the outer casing is clean remove the inner cable again. Holding the inner cable with your hand & holding the inner cable up high enough to keep it from hitting the ground, & away from the vehicle, with one hand holding the inner cable spray the inner cable again & wipe with a rag, paper towel or whatever & while still wet wipe the inner cable down.  Do this until the rag/paper towel comes away with NO residue on it.  At this point you DO NOT want the cable to hit the ground.  I know there are a lot of diff. lubes that you can use, BUT my favorite is the Kendall Super Blue grease.  It is NOT thick like regular wheel bearing grease & holds it's consistincy for just about a lifetime. It could even be used to grease the rubbing block on the points because it doesn't contain graphite. This grease can be used for multiable things including wheel bearings.  Wrap the inner cable around your hand very loosely. Keep the cable from touching anything while in your hand. Starting from the last part of the cable that came out, the square end, start spreading the grease either with your fingers or  brush of some sort & while installing the cable keep feeding it into the outer cable while twisting until you come to the end.

Once the cable is being installed while pushing it back into the outer casing keep twisting it while installing at the same time. You only need to lube the inner cable at about 3/4" from the end. When you get to the end keeping the mental pic. of where the inner cable was in relation to the outer cable when removed. IF it doesn't seem to be in as far as when removed just twist the cable with your fingers until it gets seated back into the outer casing as far as it was before removing it.

IF you didn't install the trans. end of the cable yet it will just slide back in with no problem. Now attach the inner & outer cable back into the speedo head. It may take a little persauding so proceed with caution. NOTHING needs to be forced.

At this point, before installing the cable to the back of the speedo, you may want to spray some white litium grease to the bushing that looks like a brass/ bronze color.  You don't need a lot, and twist the bushing with your finger back & forth to try & work some of the grease into the bronze/brass bushing that's part of the speedo head.

Now at this point just wiggle the cable into the trans. gear & your done.  In reality it would probably take my self about 30-45 minutes at most, maybe a little longer for someone who may have never done it before.

Now enjoy your quite & no more jumpy speedo.

 

Let me & others know how you made out.

 

Tom T.

[Paul K.]

Hi Tom, 

 

I've greased a few speedo cables but seeing an earlier thread saying the Riv cable won't come out from the bottom caused me to ask.

 

Thank you for the VERY detailed instructions including the recommendation for the brand of grease. This is excellent information which will give a long lasting fix. I'll follow up with the results. 

 

Paul