best source for speedster parts?

You could contact Vintage Motorcars and see if they have all of the stock you need. They're located in Hawaiian Gardens, CA and a huge supporter of the SOC and the Speedster Replica hobby.

vintagespeedsterparts.com has poor quality parts.

Greg Vintage Motorcars  Home - Vintage Motorcars of California Inc. (vintagemotorcarsinc.com)

Carey at Special Edition BECK Speedster, BECK Spyder, BECK Roadster and BECK GTS

Thanks for the info!, I found some of the parts at Vintagemotorcarsinc.com, just sent them a message, I will be in Disneyland next week, so I can pick them up and look at their amazing Speedster birth hospital.

James, another endorsement for Vintage Motorcars parts. I did a complete rebuild of an old IM a couple of years ago and sourced most of the parts (interior, seats, carpet, top hardware, cabrio, windshield, lights, hardware, etc) from Greg. Great people to deal with and the shipping to Maui wasn't crazy.

Question along the same lines - a dummy backed up at a stop light, and backed into me...  a little bumper tweak and paint scratch - and a broken headlight - specifically the headlight bucket, and crushed rock guard.  Greg is out of stock of the headlight bucket - I can surf some sites and find them - just curious if anyone has another reputable supplier they'd use for such an item.  Thanks for any insights or suggestions.

Have a body shop to do the touch up work, just thinking I can accelerate things as they won't be up to speed on the speedster parts, etc.

Thanks,

- Matt

The headlight buckets are simply replica pre-67 VW parts so any VW supplier will have.  Quality of chrome may vary but most are TIAWAN/China made.  Maybe you can still find a MX or Brazilian one.

An air horn is valuable wake up for those asleep around you

Technically the headlight bucket is probably the fiberglass rounded fiberglass piece molded into the fender which should be repairable.  The VW part I referred to is:

Exactly - its the larger glass housing surrounding the headlamp - thanks for the tips - I'll go shopping.

I split my biz between Vintage in SoCal, Stoddard sometimes, and Sierra Madre Collection (great guys in LA.

Hello fellow speedsterowners, I just bought a used Speedster (built by Vintage Speedsters in 2013) and need to replace the tachometer. I contacted Greg at Vintage Motorcars and he doesn't have that model but suggested a shop that could repair it. I am still waiting to hear from the shop but in the meantime I wanted to ask around whether you know a store that might carry it.

Thanks!

You probably have the older 110 mm Chinese or Brazilian Tach.  They were noted for failing.  The new ones are 105 mm (and the Speedo is GPS driven).  You can use the new smaller one by using a rubber gasket.  The smaller ones are most likely the ones all carry now.  I'd check JPS as they may have an older one in stock still or a used one. Places like Hollywood Speedo replace the guts with VDO parts -- it is not cheap!  Maybe someone here has a used older Tach the same size.  Wonder if you could take the guts from a 914 VDO speedo and DIY and swap them out.  You can get a used 914 gauge for ~$150. (I probably have one cheaper if you want to try).

Here's 914 gauge - you'd just use the guts (the gauge is larger yet).

Wolfgang, thanks a lot for your reply. I didn't know that the gauges I have are 110mm. Is that the widest diameter including the chrome edge?

The shop that Greg mentioned to me just called me back with a $385 quote to repair my unit. And they want me to take the old unit and bring it to them (which is way beyond my extremely limited technical skills).

You also mentioned 105mm but the unit I am looking at right now is 100mm. Is it possible that there are three different measurements for 356 gauges? Hence my question to you to clarify where you take the measurement. Would this work for me?

Last, here's my car so you can see what the gauges look like.

https://www.fastlanecars.com/v...56-speedster-replica

Thanks for your help!

Pino

$400 is what the set of those gauges cost new, they used to have them at www.vintagespeedsterparts.com, now they have a vdo set for $705, you can ask them if they still carry the vdo style gauges, if not, I would buy the VDO’s for $700 and sell your actual gauges separately for $150-$200 each

Sorry off on my mm -

The older Brazilian reproduction VDO and the Chinese gauges are in 105mm housings. The OEM Porsche gauges are 100mm. It's the size of the casing or hole in dash. The new ones with GPS speedo are 100 mm.

Thanks James and Wolfgang.

www.vintagespeedsterparts.com told me they do not carry the Chinese ones any longer. Neither does Vintage Speedsters or Vintage Motorcars or JPS or Beck. So I guess that should probably bite the bullet and buy a new set of VDO gauges. The question now is, do I need new senders for the new gauges or could I keep the existing ones in place?

You shouldn’t need any modifications, if your speedometer is mechanical, you can add a GPS sender for around $80, or keep your mechanical sender

can N. Hollywood rebuild them

Last year I replaced my older Brazilian gauges with the new VDO. As mentioned they are 5mm smaller. You can use 911 rubber gaskets to make them fit in the larger hole. https://www.partsklassik.com/P...g-gasket-100-mm.aspx

I didn't like how the black rubber looked surrounding the gauges so I had some rings cut out of aluminum to keep them from falling through the hole. I carefully cut the 911 gaskets to remove the retaining lip and rubber cement glued them to the body of the gauges. These gaskets are much easier than using the retaining arm on the back to install and remove the gauges.  The gauges look and work great as well

I have a couple of extra aluminum ring sets I'd be happy to send for the cost of postage if others are replacing gauges and could use them.

I used the Hall Effect sensor to convert the speedo signal to digital, which allowed me to move the speedo to the right as well.

Quadmod, that was exactly what I thought when I found out that the new VDO gauges are 100mm. Yours look very nice with the aluminum rings but my problem is that I am not doing the work myself (as I am unable to) and so I am not sure how much my mechanic wants to mess around cutting and glueing...

On the other side, I don't want to pay $385 to fix the existing tachometer when I can pay $705 to buy a new VDO gauge set. Also considering that even the existing speedo might stop working one day soon.

I will let you know if I need those aluminum rings anyway. DO you have three?

I just checked, yes I have three spare rings. They’re raw metal and would need to be polished to shine like mine. I just used a bit of simichrome polish.

If you buy the GPS VDO gauges get new senders. Mine gauges fit just fine with the included rubber gasket. And honestly you can hardly see it and they look great.

Thank you Robert and Quadmod. I am trying to decide which way to go.

James, I actually found out from vintagespeedsterparts that the set they sell for $705 is not VDO. They didn't say what brand. And they also told me they are out of stock and ETA is unknown. Everybody I called told me the same. I guess our cars are getting superpopular, also looking at the latest prices on BaT!

FWIW, a gauge repaired by Palo Alto Speedometer or North Hollywood Speedometer for $400 is going to be a much better instrument than any of the ones in the $700 sets. IMHO.

Well, I purchased the $705 dlls set two months ago from them, and it says VDO, and comes with VDO instructions, and they measure 100mm, three years ago I got the 105mm from them, $450 dlls, and quality was much lower, if what I got is not VDO, then these are exact quality replicas, metal casing, much heavier gauges, thicker bezel, etc… made in India, even the part numbers match pics attached (only showing two of three)

@pinot64 posted:

James, I actually found out from vintagespeedsterparts that the set they sell for $705 is not VDO. They didn't say what brand. And they also told me they are out of stock and ETA is unknown. Everybody I called told me the same. I guess our cars are getting superpopular, also looking at the latest prices on BaT!

Buy them from Carey at Beck/Special Edition or from Greg at Vintage Motorcars.

Thanks, Robert

@Robert M They are out of stock too. I talked to them earlier this week.

@Former Member posted:

@Robert M They are out of stock too. I talked to them earlier this week.

Dang. I'd wait then. Not sure I'd buy them from vintagespeedsterparts.com