Date:         Wed, 6 Aug 1997 23:20:38 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David Schwarze <des@tiu.net>
Subject:      Re: odometer success!

At 9:57 PM -0500 8/5/97, Sean Bartnik wrote:

>I will not reveal the listmember's name as of yet, but he has a speedometer
>repair shop nearby and got the gear there, and sent it to me.  I believe he
>is in the process of ordering more gears from this shop so he can help out
>other listmembers who have this common problem.

During my recent trip to the West coast I set out on a mission to fix my
Vanagon speedometer (installed in my '73) which also had a cracked gear.
Cracked so badly that the odometer paused regularly and under-reported the
miles traveled.  I was very relieved to find out I was really getting more
than 16 mpg!

I started in the best junkyard in San Diego, which had three vanagons and
one speedometer.  The gear in this speedometer was cracked.

Next I tried the gear from an earlier bus speedo, per the suggestion of a
list member some time ago.  The older bus speedo gears are made of metal,
but they do not have the same number of teeth (I think the old bus gear had
one less tooth), so no go.

That led me to wonder if any other similar vehicles DID use the same gear.
I started pulling speedos out of Audis, Rabbits, Volvos, Sciroccos, and
BMWs.  These cars all had similar speedometers made by VDO.  I attacked the
Rabbits first, and pulled 5 before I found a gear that wasn't cracked.
Then noticed that the gears had the wrong number of teeth again.  Should
have checked that right away.

Volvos didn't fit, Sciroccos didn't fit, Audi 100's didn't fit, but finally
I found an old BMW with a METAL speedo gear that was effectively identical
to the Vanagon one.  Now I should have noted the exact model and year, but
I was so happy that I forgot.  I had just about given up!  I think it was
an older 530, or possibly a 70's model 635 or 735.  There were a few old
Bimmers there and the others had gears that didn't fit, so bring the old
gear and match them up.

>Anyway, I was able to install the new gear without too many problems.  The
>first thing I found out was that it was a lot harder to get the new gear on
>the shaft than it was to get the old cracked gear off.  it really has to be
>pressed on, but you can fake it with a correctly sized c-clamp, and then a
>couple small sockets and strong thumbs.

I found the same to be true.  Pried the old one off with a small
screwdriver (it practically fell off actually) and had to beat the new one
on with a hammer.  I was a little worried about the metal/plastic interface
of the new gear with the plastic worm gear on the speedo, but I smeared
some grease on it and then drove over 1,500 miles and it's still working.


>so, what I've learned here:
>1) it's very nice to have a new gear rather than trying to repair the old
>one.

Agreed.

>2) Don't reset the trip odometer while the vehicle is in motion -- save
>yourself all this aggravation.

I called two speedo shops in San Diego, and they both quoted me about $70
to repair my speedo (Hah!  I like one dollar better), and told me that
resetting the trip meter while driving had nothing to do with breaking the
gear.  Looking at how the mechanism works, I can't find any reason to
disagree with them.  I think the plastic gears were simply underengineered.

-David


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David Schwarze             '73 VW Safare Custom Camper              (Bluto)
Dallas, Texas, USA         '73 Capri GT 2800                     (Da Beast)
e-mail: des@tiu.net        '87 Mustang 5.0                    (Da Race car)
or:     des@eskimo.com     '93 Weber WG-50                       (Da Piano)
http://www.tiu.net/~des    '95, '96, '96 cats             (Aackkk! Phhttt!)
===========================================================================