Speedo Cable Noise

The old existing cable is becoming a constant and loud whiner. Would the tried and true paper funnel technique of pouring lubricant into the cable to at least temporarilly work to make mister cable happy, and if so, what is the proper (or at least the "best") liquid to use? Or.....is the consensus that the problem might lie in the speedometer housing (not a VDO or similar quality...probably Chinese) be the most likely scenario?

Barry, use the search utility here as I recall that was discussed previously; I'm sure you'll find the answer there. If I recall correctly some people talked about lubricating the cable and some others talked about just getting a new quality replacement.

Use a pressurized grease gun, pump style or air powered. Fill the cable sleeve with bearing lube, works great!

Blasted Cables! Thanks guys for the info. There oughta be a way to go wireless.

VDO has electronic Speedos --- You need to buy speedo $120-150 plus the magnetic speed sensor $50-120 --- whole lot more costly than a $10 cable (but they are programable for different size tires/wheels). Check out www.cip1.com. Be glad you don't have the distributor cable driven tach used in the 356A/B's. It went all way to rear of car and frequently snapped!

I called Palo Alto Speedometer today and inquired about the possibility of lubing the cable, since the cable appeared to be difficult to remove and replace. They said that lubing the cable involved removing the innards for lubrication, and that the end result of lubrication would probably foul the speedo with lubricant. Their advice was to just bite the bullet and replace the cable. So, back to square one: how difficult is it to remove the cable and replace it on a Spyder? Where does the cable go after it exists the firewall? Do I have to remove the gas tank to get at it? I know some of you have successfully lubed the cable, but here I am, getting conflicting information. Frankly, I would just like to replace the danged thing and be done with it, but as a new owner, I lack the knowledge as to how to do it. I don't want to get into the project, screw it up, then have a dozen people tell me that Palo Alto gave me a bum steer and that I should have taken the above advice and taken the lube trip first. Ten bucks for a cable and 500 bux for a therapist.

Spyder? But on a VW pan based Speedster the drive is off the wheelbearing cap on the LF/Driver's side. It is less than 4" long. Having build my Speedster from pan up - it is not difficult to replace on it. Depending on where your Speedo is on dash you may need the longer T3 cable. Don't use a lnger one though unless you need it because any extra bends/kinks will result in noise or snapped cable. I suspect an NOS cable is better than some of the aftermarket stuff.

Wolf; that's IF you can find it....most of the replacements I've seen are Brazilian aftermarket.

It took me 10 minutes to replace the cable on my VS. Really easy
Troy

Barry, You'll be surprised how simple it is. Pull your front wheel hub cap off (if there), look at the bearing grease/dust cap on the center of your drum you'll see a small square end poking
through it with a c-clip holding it in place. c-clip off, pop the cap, pull cable (wiggle to free
it from drive), lube and then send it in again (with a wiggle/twist) and make sure it engages
again in the speedo. It's been a long time but thats how I remember it.

The car is a Beck Spyder, not a VW pan-based car. The cable appears to enter the inside of the drum, but I haven't really had a chance to get a light under the car to gain enough visibility to see just how the thing hooks up on the wheel end. The speedo end is already disconnected. I'll be back on this thread after I get into the project for real. I plan to remove the cable, see how long it is, then take it from there. So far, it appears that the cable will have to be removed toward the speedometer through its opening in the fiberglass portion of the firewall, preceded by removal of the gas tank (the cable appears to snake under or along side of the tank), at least from what I could see as of yesterday.

You may get better advice if you post your problem on the Spyder sister site.

Barry, if a cable is used and it goes into the rear of the front drum assy. then it's VW.

Thanks Bruce and Bruce. Actually, there are several Spyder owners on the SOC site. I have found that I get a lot of great information from both groups.

To answer the original question, "what lube to use" I'd suggest molibdenem disulfide (sp?), commonly called "moly disulfide. It used to be available at any motorcycle shop. Its a blackish liquid, shake weell before using type. Comes with a long hyperdermic type needle for inserting into cable ends a squeezing fluid in. Haven't seen it for awhile, probably due to advent of newer cables that are sealed and not meant for lube. But it definitely works (35 years of motorcycle cable lubing here), if you can find some.

I called the people at Palo Alto Speedometers. They advised to forget lubing the cable, since it was their opinion that the cable is in all probability kinked and that merely lubricating it would not help. They suggested to just change the cable. As soon as I find out the length of the cable, I'll again get down and dirty.