I recently replaced speedo cable in my 66 as it was leaking C4 transmission oil. Everything went fine - no more oil on floor - but now my speedometer bounces at slow speeds - below 20 mph it will bounce from 0 to 20. Once I reach 20 and up it smooths right out. I'm wondering if I introduced a problem or if thats the way these speedos work. I would not have even looked at the speedo at such slow speeds if I had not just replaced the cable. I lubed it with speedo grease per the instructions. Anybody else ever see a bouncy speedo at slow speeds?
speedometer cable (bouncy)
- Thread starter Bonestock2k
- Start date
Make sure you did not twist the cable a little under the car and put it in a little bit of a bind. Take it out and let it fall down and let it go into it's relaxed posisiton. Now put it back in carefuly so that the cable is in a natural position. If that doesn't do it then you need to pull the guage cluster and take out the cable insert and lube it up real god and replace.
mfp4073
Founding Member
I dont know if you replaced the gear or not, but an auto gear in a manual tranny or a manual gear in an auto will cause this too.
Ronstang: I did the cable thing you mentioned - no change - I now have the speedo on my work bench and am trying to figure out how/what to lube. Does the cable insert come out - is that what you lube? It dosn't look like something that's easy to disassemble. mfp4073: I reused the transmission gear - it looked fine.
New info on my bouncing speedo: (1) I bought the cheap one for 20 bucks and it is a one size fits all - it's about 2 foot longer than my original. (2) Although I threw away the original I seem to remember it was not only shorter in length but built out of stouter material. (3) The Ford built replacement was about 60 - 70 dollars - am I on to something or do I need to keep trying to make this new #@&#! cheap one work?
I love it when a plan comes together. After spending way more time on this than I should have had to - NO MORE BOUNCING SPEEDOMETER CABLE! For all those who followed me on my journey the fix was simple - I bought another cable from NAPA. As soon as I examined the new cable I new I had it - when I would hold one end of the cable and twist, the other end immediately twisted. The other POS that I got from BEL-KIRK MUSTANG I could hold one end and twist - nothing happened on the other end - kinda like rotating a spring - I could feel the tension but it wouldn't turn in my hand until I had gone thru 1 complete rotation on the other end. That's why the speedo was bouncing at the slow speeds - at the higher speeds the torsional effect would be dampened out resulting in little or no bounce. The above post contains an error - there is only about 4" difference in length between the 2 units. Also, only had to pay $25.00 for the NAPA unit. I had called the local Ford dealer and they no longer carry them - they recommended I try NAPA or Westbay (another parts place). I typing fast here as my computer monitor is starting to shrink - LOL it's always something. Again, thanks to all who replied - they were good tips.
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