Great thread on speedo needles! My original plastic needle on my '51 is dried and crumbled, so I bought a replacement plastic. I found that the 'hub' onto which the needle assembly crimps simply pulls straight off of the spindle while holding the spndle with needlenose pliers (unless it's not supposed to and I just broke it). However, I must have altered the springworks, because the spindle no longer zeros out.
If you imagine the speedometer as a clock face, there's a physical stop at 9 o'clock. A tab on the dial (back in the housing), rests on the top of this stop at zero mph. When you accelerate, the dial rotates clockwise. The spring tension is such that it returns the needle back to zero by rotating the dial counterclockwise until the tab hits the stop. This is how it's supposed to work.
But on mine, now that I've messed with it, the spring does not always bring the tab back to the stop (i.e., return the needle to the zero mph position). In fact, at one point, the dial would only rotate counterclockwise (i.e., it would return to a stop at 80 mph, and you could rotate it to zero, but it wanted to return to 80 mph). I now have it to where it rotates clockwise on acceleration, but it doesn't always return to zero with tension against the stop.
I wonder if I've broken the spindle loose back in the works.
I know this is a confusing description, but the point is I think I've changed how the spindle rests relative to the spring tension.
Does anybody have any ideas as to what I may have done and how to fix it?
