TheSamba.com :: View topic - Speedometer / odometer questions (Is this broken?)

Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:27 pm

I'm was doing some work on the odometer, and had to take off the spiral spring that keeps the speedometer shaft from simply spinning in circles. Putting it back on was a bit messy, and I'm not sure if I did it right.

1. Does the spring have to be "under tension" when you put it back on? See these two pictures.

My spring looks a bit different than the one in these pictures:

Also, the spring that resets the trip odometer looks weird to me. Is this how it's supposed to look?

Thu Feb 27, 2014 8:49 am

Here's some pics of two I pulled apart. I'm no expert, just garnered what I could from working on these. The '85 speedo now has several thousand miles on it, is quiet, odo is accurate, though needle shakes a tiny bit, speed reads high with amount increasing as speed increases. eg. at 30 mph it's about 1 mile too high. at 60 it's about 5 miles too high. This could be due to me mangling the magnetic drive wheel frame. No. Don't ask. ;)

from my '85 https://picasaweb.google.com/musomuso/1985VanagonTransporterSpeedometerGuts

and a diesel

https://picasaweb.google.com/musomuso/1982Or83DieselSpeedometerClipOnCableType

That's a good question. AFAIK, no. If the spring has not been molested during work done on the speedo, the tension it is at, is correct.

When you install the needle you need to preload it. In the image below, you can see a small white mark. Search crazyvwvan man post to confirm, but you need to line up needle with the small white mark, push it down far enough to grab on needle shaft, carefully lift needle up over post, push needle all the way down. This preloads the spring.

FWIW, I used light mineral oil at the spring shaft "bearing" points.

Neil.

diesel odo spring position