Re: Odometers... longish

["Andre' Bjorkheim" <andreb@maxwell.ee.washington.edu>]

Daun Yeagley wrote:

> What the hell is it with the odometers on our cars? 

    They blow!  =p

 The
> odometer in my '88 has rolled over and died.  Well, not
> totally.  It's gone intermittent, as in it works most of
> the time, but still quits now and then.  This is really
> frustrating.  Who here has a fix for it?  

    Mine first died in this fashion.  There is a white gear that
is shaped like rocket.  It is driven by the gears internal to the
spring mechanism for the speedo.  This rocket shaped gear then 
drives a smaller gear on the end of the main odometer shaft.  My
first problem was that this white gear on the end of the odo
shaft had cracked, and was no longer turning the shaft, but
instead just turning itself.  It should be seated on the shaft
tightly so as to turn it.  Once I got a new gear I put that on,
actually hammered it cuz its a tight fit, and in the process I
ended up jarring loose a metal gear that is the next gear on
the shaft behind the plastic gear on the end, the one that 
originally broke on me.  The odo shaft is held onto the frame
of the speedo by 2 points.  The metal gear was the one behind
the plastic gear, seperated by one of the shaft attachment
points.  Its basically the only metal gear on that shaft.  Anyhow,
that metal gear, and the one next to it, on the end, the white 
one (at least mine was white) are the only 2 gears that are to
be fixed to that shaft.  The odometer gears themselves are to
spin freely about the shaft.  The metal gear is the one that
turns the 1s milage position, and the 1s position turns the 10s
position & so on.   I am sure you probably know this, but anyhow..
There is also a small white gear that is on its own shaft that
contacts the metal odo gear and this small white gear in turns
drives the trip odometer gears.  So, if either the white gear
on the end of the main odo shaft is slipping (BTW, my gear had
14 teeth on it), or if that metal one is slipping, you get 
shafted.  You can fix the outside gear with superglue should it
not be cracked, but the metal gear has no room to get glue on
the shaft and its base, so I had to take the end gear back off,
slide the shaft through its 2 rotating points on the housing
and then where the metal gear sits, I crimped it so it wasnt
round, but oval.  I then put the shaft back in through its 
mounting points (some difficulty here cuz the shaft is now no
longer round where the metal gear sits) and finished it with
the end gear, which doesnt pass through that crimped point.  No
problems since.  HTH....  BTW, I only believe in single 
paragraphs  =p


========================

 André
 Lime Green 79 Scirocco ©
 ICQ #266870

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