Changing the gears in the speedometer should not change the way it reads. Should be the same. All old GM speedometers with the exception of 65-69 corvairs (if there are others, chime in) are geared to work with 1000 revolutions per mile input. With the speedometers all the same, changes were made in the gears in the trany. It is possible, however, that one of the two speedometers was not correctly calibrated.