The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors re-setting the odometer

I'm working on my gauges, thanks to rustednuts' tech tips, I have the odometer all spiffed up like new. Just wondering, how do you reset the odometer back to zero?

Electric screwdriver or small electric motor connected to the input is one way. Back when dirt was young and I was a body man at a used car dealer, they had a fellow come by once a week with a small tackle box. He'd get something out of the box and reach under the dash for a couple of minutes. When he was done the odometer was reset. He'd never let anyone see what was in his tackle box.

My buddy 1937chevypu has reset a couple of the early odometers by taking them apart and realigning them. Did you have to take it apart to restore the numbers on the little wheels?

I had the whole thing all apart, each of the 6 wheels was off. I just put it all back together again, those parts sure are small. One thing is puzzling to me, to test it out, I used a drill and I had to put the drill in reverse to make the odometer go up. Also, the speedo needle wants to go counter clockwise too. (I don't have any spare parts left over) Tiny, if I use a drill to reset it, I do well to get a half a mile a minute with my drill.

PM Jeremy 1937chevypu and I bet he can talk you through it. I watch him but my eyes aren't what they used to be.

that was the time to do it. i just picked up a spare speedo this past week. i took it apart for other reasons. while my friend was fixting the broke part i had the wheels still on the shaft and started playing with it and just like that i had it zeroed. i zeroed it from left to right not right to left. after its zeroed install in on the rack and put it back together. my friend had just fixed the other part and now i have a good spare speedo.

When I did my 54 I got a gauge sticker kit and put the odometer stickers on at 0.

Why reset your odometer? I would want to keep it original. Its part of your trucks history...I'm sure your doing this in the spirit of a complete restoration and I can appreciate that, but your really not supposed to be resetting odometers to zero (at least in the US maybe Canada is different).

The odometer is irrelevant in most places at this point. They are usually listed as exempt, over 100k, beyond mechanical means or some such. No problem with setting it to zero.

If you do this the numbers will roll over on the real 0 and will be random times.

10024-10035 10044-10155 and so on

I worked in a Desoto/Plymouth dealership when I was in my teens (a long, long time ago). In the 50's. Anyway, the dealership had a used car lot and they would, during the night, have an electric drill attached to the transmission end of the speedo cable running it in reverse. It worked then and I suspect it would work now.

I have rebuilt the speedometers in my 1950 Chevy and 1952 GMC trucks and used the instructions found here: http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/bulletins/ums/52UMS3d42501.html

In resetting the odometer after installing the new decals, I wanted to return it to the original mileage. I found that it was best to start by setting all the numbers to zero and then by starting from the left most number you could hold your finger on the tab on the small metal disc while rotating the adjacent wheel until the far left number was on the desired number. As I adjusted the second number from the left, I held the two left most tabs stationary as I rotated the third wheel. Do this in turn with each of the wheels working your way from left to right until you have all the numbers registering the desired mileage.

Good call, Huck, worked like a charm!! My particular reason for wanting the odometer set back to zero is that I got a set of gauges off ebay for $50 and I'm refurbishing them to resell so that they might live on in another truck someday!!