Speedometer Head Scratcher

Hey there, brand spankin' new member here!

I have a 1980 Z28 with a 4 Speed T10. Recently had a noisy speedo cable (no surprise there) so I disconnected and lubed with graphite spray. After hooking back up it worked for a couple of days, made some awful noises then stopped working entirely. After a lot of trial and error I ended up replacing the stock 2-piece cable (no cruise) with a 1-piece. When I hook everything up I either get nothing from the speedo, or I get a sticking and sluggish speedo that doesn't return to 0. Strangely enough, if I remove the speedo from the gauge cluster and hook it up by itself it works great. It's almost like having it in the cluster is causing it to bind or else impeding the cable from hooking up properly - although that doesn't appear to be an issue.

Any thoughts from anyone? Thanks in advance,

Scott

 

Well, I guess I jumped the gun by an hour or so. I figured it out. Turns out that since my cluster has some busted tabs it was not sitting properly and was likely causing the speedo cable to bind inside the speedo unit. Just moving the bottom of the cluster by a 1/4 inch brought the speedo back to life! So...if anyone encounters a similar issue check to make sure the cluster is aligned properly!

 

Yup I did the cable yesterday. Although I’m close to hobbit size so it wasn’t too bad haha

 

Yes it clicks in