The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors Speedometer Problems

I have a 1950 3100 Chevy. The speedo was not hooked up when I bought it. I dissembled and cleaned the speedo. I ran a test by hooking a drill to it and running it in reverse. It seems to work right. Then I bought a new cable and installed it. It worked for about 1/10th of a mile, then went down to zero. I checked the cable and it appears to be fine. What could be wrong?

unhook the cable and position it where you can see it as you go down the road, if it spins, you probably have a problem with your speedo. That would be how i'd test it, then go from there.

I will give that a try. I did run the drill on the cable hooked up to the speedo. It worked great. So my guess is that the speedo is good, and maybe the gear in the tranny is goofed up.

gmindel; this is just as information and may not even apply to you. In the past I have had two incidents that I thought for sure the speedo was bad or the tranny gear.
Well, turns out that the end of the speedo cable going into the back of the speedo was NOT the proper size although it was sold as a replacement.
I actually took mine to a guage resto place that is close by and watched them test it...it was OK... then he ask me to bring the cable. Well, compared to his spool of cable and the new one you could see the difference with the naked eye. Both times I had him make me a new one and the speedo's are as smooth as silk. I would never have thought it would make that much difference.

My 37 ran about a year and started going crazy, bouncing, not steady and then it quit! Well, it was the first time I had the experience... and the new cable now has it quite as a mouse.

Just info guys....just tuck it away in the memory bank. You just never know.

I will check this out. Thanks