Date:         Wed, 9 Jul 1997 19:03:50 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Linda Bartnik" <lbart@preferred.com>
Subject:      odometer solution (for now anyway)

Hey all,
Here's what I've got as of this evening:

I found that super glue-ing the gear back together would be futile.  Every
time I pressed it back onto the shaft, it broke the glue bond at the crack.
 I attempted repair with the gear on the shaft but that didn't work either.

Here's what I finally did:  I figured the gear was non-repairable anyway,
so I might as well attempt to junk it further.  The result of the crack is
that two of the teeth are farther away from each other than all the other
teeth.  This makes one tooth hang up on the screw gear, stopping the
odometer from advancing.  What I did is to file down that one tooth so that
it would clear the screw gear but still have enough tooth left for the
screw gear to push it around.  I filed, installed, tested, removed, filed,
installed, and tested many times before I got it just right.  It turned out
that I had to file one tooth considerably and the one right after it just a
smidgen.  But with all the testing, my hand is worn out.  I cranked that
thing about 4 miles by hand just doing the trial and error testing.  

For the final testing phase before reassembly I cranked it around a few
times (using a flat blade screwdriver where the cable connects and turning
it in the proper direction) just to make sure that it worked consistently. 
It did, to my surprise.

So I put it all back together and reinstalled it in the van (BTW, it was
surprisingly easy to get it in and out of the van).  I went to test drive
and noticed that it wasn't working.  Then I remembered that I had forgotten
to hook up the cable.  DOH!!  So, I hooked up the cable and took the van
for a spin and it works fine.  This may be a viable alternate repair
procedure for those who don't have junk Vanagon speedometers around or who
can't find a good used gear.  It seems to work fine but I don't know how
long it will last.  I figure it will last until the gear either cracks
again somewhere else or shatters, whichever happens first :-) .  In the
meantime, though, I can keep my eyes open for Vanagon speedometers so I
will be ready when the time comes.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Sean