Yesterday I drove the old 300SD to San Francisco. When I started on the freeway the speedometer suddenly started howling - definitely speed related - howl suddenly starts at 25 mph and increases from there. It's definitely the cable end or the bearing into the speedometer.
Normal at low speeds then a full blast howl!
Anyone have this experience??
If so how was it repaired? Cable? Speedo?
1980 300SD 110K miles.Tom
Pull the cluster forward a little, undo the speedo cable, shoot a tiny bit of graphite on there per the factory, and put it back together.
Reminds me of lubing clutch cables in motorcycles. For those they sell cans and applicators to avoid messy jobs.
I'll try it.
Thanks,
Tom
I applied some Teflon grease to the speedometer's input socket and that seems to have fixed it. (I had to remove the knee bolster and heat duct to be able to reach the cable to get it back on to the speedo.)
It's usually the simple stuff, and in this case that was true!
Grease will harden with age. They tell you to use graphite and nothing else for a reason.
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