Recalibrating Mechanical Speedos

[Jon Bradbury]

Hello

 

Does anyone know who can recalibrate mechanical speedos and how much it costs? I have decided to buy a second hand set from a classic car (Spittie / Vitesse / etc) to put into my Hood instead of the (obviously Sierra sourced) instrument pod.

 

Can you give any advice as to potential problems?

 

Cheers

 

JonB

[Guest Battery Bill]

Hi Jon

We fancy going down the same line, We spoke to a garage in Lincoln who specialises in this sort of thing Dolomites, Spitfires, Rovers etc.

He told me there is a "Dolomite owners club auto jumble at RAF Cosford on Sunday. He recons a set of clocks should set you back £20 ish, Sounds like its worth a visit.

Bill and Joey

[Guest nippykev]

Check out E-bay, I got a full dolomite sprint dash for £10

 

Kevin

2b may 2003

[Guest Ant]

Richfield Speedograph in Nottingham do reconditioning and recalibration. I'd recommend them. That is where mine was done. About £60 quid I think, so it's not cheap.

 

A word to the wise though. The Sierra instrument on my donor was labelled inside it as 1000r/mile, and the smiths one I used instead was labelled inside it as 1000rev/m. Put the two together and you get 1000 revolutions of the speedo cable per mile. This seems to be a very common calibration for lots of cars!

 

Unfortunately mine read about 2mph under throughout the scale at SVA, hence I had it recalibrated and reconditioned. It is now about 10% over. It was better before the recalibration, but only because of the built in tolerance of the new calibration setup. A better route for me would have been to move the needle by 4 or 5mph and go back to SVA like that, reading 2 or 3 mph over.

 

You will probably need a new cable too with the correct fittings. They cost about 20 quid from the same place.

 

Ant