Seeking A1 Rabbit speedometer tech

Generally a local speedometer shop can fix that up for you. I don't believe it is cheap however.

Unlike most American cars where speedos were all calibrated the same, VW seems to use one drive gear for the speedo cable and all the calibration is done in the speedo head. What you need to do, if this really bothers you, is go back to the boneyard and find a speedo that has the same numbers printed on the face as the original one for your car. That code relates to the revs/mile or revs/KM of the speedo cable. (I think all American speedos are calibrated for 1000 revs/mile or something like that IIRC)

nate

Thanks for the post, however I failed to inform you that I am a cheap bastard. ;-)

Ahh. Excellent info, something I can take with me. Thanks! If I fix the odometer gear on the original speedo, then life will be good. So far, I have not found anyone who makes a replacement. I understand that they frequently split. Thanks again.

why not use the odo gear from the boneyard speedo?

nate

Alas, it's cracked. Still working, but it's not much better than the split one. Since the problem seems to be shrinkage of the gear over time, I think I will just remove some material from the inside of the gear until it will fit on the shaft and secure the pieces with some JB Weld. Not a great solution, but it should work.

Get a cheap GPS?

I know where I am, at least most of the time. But I would like to get some fairly accurate fuel mileage info before I run it on veg oil.

GPS will also display total distance and trip mileages as well as MPH or KPH if you like.

I figured that already :-)

Use a good quality plastic rated epoxy and clean the b-jesus out of the plastic with alcohol before you glue it. I have an 81 diesel rabbit that I did this to in 1992... it still works 13 years later.