speedo song & dance

Hello all,,, when I'm cruising slow, the speedo needle will dance up and down. I can hear a rotational rubbing sound. When I hear the sound, the needle will jump up and fall back down until it gets the point where it jumps up and I hear the rubbing sound again. Then, once I get up to speed, there is a constant hum sound and the needle reads the speed I'm at.

I did some snooping around and found the cable can have kinks in it, be poorly routed or real dry. I looked and they do not appear to be routed in a way that would cause a bind.

I think it is just dry and needs to be lubricated. What do y'all think?

quite possible. there was another thread not too long ago where they got into this, and the pros and cons of different methods and types of lube to use. If you can find it, it would be worth the read.

Unless the previous owner had it out, the factory routing should be fine. Mine that I did last night does a little turn right before the cluster that isn’t factory, and I think it’s fine. It’d be hard to tell about kinks because you can’t see the cable unless you remove it from the sheathing. If it’s just bouncing and making a rubbing sound, I’d say go with lubing the cable first and replacing as a last resort. If it’s binding at all, bouncing from end to end, or making harsh noises like popping or banging, it’s probably the speedo head. I just went through this whole thing and still am. I started the thread on lubricants, which I’ll attach, and I ended up making my own out of powdered graphite and denatured alcohol, which I think had it been done ten or twenty years ago, it would have been excellent in my case. If you could wait a few days, I’d get the purpose speedo stuff they sell online, which you’ll find all the PNs in that thread. I’d also trust the dry lube in a can. Poor lubricants can gunk it up, which is what happened with my old cable for the most part so it was gone about a month or so after I went to the trouble to throughly lubricate it. I’m pretty sure that’s also what damaged the speedo head, that and a lot of use. Now the bitch of it is that not many people rebuild these things around here. I’ll likely end up having to send it in the mail somewhere because I live in a metropolitan area of over 1 million people, and no one does this kind of work. Anyways, hopefully the lube fixes it or at least staves off problems for a few years.

http://www.gmsquarebody.com/threads/stores-dont-sell-speedo-cable-lube-anymore-now-what.20833/

Alright, hopefully it just needs to be lubed. I'm gonna pick up that dorman graphite oil during this week and see what that does.

FWIW last time I lubed mine I disconnected both ends and shot about a half a can of brake parts cleaner through the housing and blew air to clean all the crap out of it. works better now

shew....glad this post was different than how I read the title