1962 Cadillac Eldorado speedometer cable trouble?

Hrmmm.... but it works sometimes when I wiggle the inner cable around. I'll probably have to wait for the new cable before I can really get to the bottom of this. Considering that the transmission was just completely rebuilt, I would expect that this part was checked out... at least I hope so. Especially since I had mentioned it ahead of time.

thanks Charles

Have you removed the inner cable and inspected the ends for damage/wear? Inside of the plstic gear could be reamed also.

Sounds like it. The gear could be missing some teeth or the socket that the cable plugs into could be worn out. If it's anything like my old '61 Ford, the gear is pretty easy to remove. If you need to replace it, you'll have to remove it anyway to make sure you buy the correct replacement. The number of teeth vary depending on the transmission and rear end.

George Patterson Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. - Linus Torvalds, speaking about Linux.

Ugh that's exactly what I'm afraid of... don't want to mess with the transmission since it was just rebuilt and would probably void the warranty. You don't know if there is any kind of oil seal on that gear is there? Unfortunately I have nothing in the shop manual about this.

I'll probably just have to wait for the new cable and see what happens. Worse case, I will bring it back to the transmission shop if replacing the cable doesn't fix it.

thanks Charles

See the post above by v8z in rec.autos.antique. It's been 25 years since I had to mess with one of these, but, IIRC, on my Ford, you removed one bolt and pulled the speedometer cable housing out of its socket in the transmission. That's the blue bolt in v8z's jpeg. The gear was plastic and was held onto the cable housing with a spring clip. There was some sort of gasket (probably an O-ring) on the end of the cable housing that kept it from leaking.

The gear had a square socket for the shaft. You couldn't see the condition of the socket until the gear was removed from the cable housing, and you couldn't do that until the cable housing was pulled from the tranny. As v8z says, the color of the gear could be used by the parts counter to determine the number of teeth. George Patterson Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. - Linus Torvalds, speaking about Linux.

Charles,

When you had the speedo cable out did you pull the cable out of the housing to see if it might be broken? It could be broken and the two ends could intermittently catch and make it appear to be working. You could buy a universal kit that you could cut to length and put an end on it like this, also.

Charles Scheffold wrote:

If the cable's broken, replace the housing as well. The broken cable end has probably scarred up the inside of the housing, and that damaged area will fray the replacement cable and cause it to break in short order.

George Patterson Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. - Linus Torvalds, speaking about Linux.

Yes, I pulled it back and forth from either end... looked fine. I've got a new cable on the way so I'll just have to wait and find out. :(

thanks Charles