Thread: Bouncing speedo needle

perhaps speedo cable - had one once in a ford that had oil in it - caused this problem.

fix at te time was flush through with wd40 fixed it for a while - wouldnt try it without any other advice but!

Mick

Originally posted by landrovermick
perhaps speedo cable - had one once in a ford that had oil in it - caused this problem.

fix at te time was flush through with wd40 fixed it for a while - wouldnt try it without any other advice but!

Mick

WD40 would have dries out after a while..... Inox would be a better choice. Certainly clean it out first with WD then hose in some Inox.

Don't those instruments use springs for dampening? Where the springs would be bought I dunno, be easier to find another gauge than source springs.

However there's a place you send them to get recalibrated and it's not cheap. Forgotten where it is, I have Newcastle in mind but you end up with a new gauge that's accurate.

Friend of mine had a VB "commodo" with a speedo that had a weak needle, hook around a corner and the needle would sway for the next 200m before it stabilised on the speed the vehicle was travelling again if you hadn't negotiated another corner. So I know it's annoying, he just went to the wreckers and bought another instrumentation assembly for $10 and installed that. No more bouncy.

Hi Adam.
Usually a bouncy needle is caused by a kinked cable and/or a dry inner cable, to lube remove cable dowse in engine oil and hang up for a few minutes to allow excess oil to run off, replace cable, remove kinks.

If the needle is reading very high speeds there is gear oil in the speedo drive head being feed up the cable (bad seal in the gear box end of the drive) if there is oil in the speedo head, it can be succesfully cleaned by removing the speedo head assembly from the instrument panel (remember no finger prints on the face plate or odometer wheels ...... someone might suppect you of giving the speedo a hair cut ops: and avoid touching the calibration spring ........ like a watch spring)

Use Aero Start or similar or white spirit , spray or dip only the drive head in a small container and soak for a few minutes ,rotate the input end for the cable with some suitable object, carefully drain excess fluid and repeat the process untill the fluid is clear, do not use compressed air, dry in the sun for at least 1/2 an hour.

Jay.
Your right about the place in Newcastle its Automotive Marine Instruments at Carrington ... it has changed owership a while back but I think it is still that name ... contact 0249611988

Joatt

Ok, thanks. I will try oiling the cable, if that does not work I will get a new one.

I had a fiddle with it today. While I was driving I could hear a "whirring" noise from the speedo whenever the needle bounced. Does that make sense?

Hi Walker
I agree with the others on cleaning out the cable.
One additional fix,on a Series at least,is to tighten the 3 philips head screws where the cable hits the transfercase.Not familiar with Rangies,but suspect they would be similar to a Series.
Andrew

Hi All,
I have a similar prob on my 84 RR, when the needle jumps there is a rythmic clicking to be heard, that speeds up as the road speed does 8O It's also louder first thing in the morning, or after not being driven for 12 hours or so.

Are these instrument binnacles easy to pull apart? It doesn't seem to very solidly mounted to the dashboard!

The tripmeter is also difficult to reset, I cracked the clear cover after trying to push it in, when my finger slipped off!

Cheers Scott

I've fixed quite a few of these in defenders, it's always been the cable. It eventually wears a small grove over time which makes the needle bounce untill you reach a speed that overcomes the grove, you can try lubricating the cable but I've found it's just stalling the enevitable.
No doupt being an older rangi it's a LT-95, pretty common thing when they get older. only thing you can do to prevent this from happening is doing what the other guys mentioned, get every sharp bend out of the cable, the smother the arc the cable runs the longer it'll last.

Cheers Larns

Thank Larns,
Where does it wear a groove?

So will replacing the cable fix the problem for good? I would not expect it would be too expensive.