My first build
- Thread starter flotsamm
- Start date
I had pretty much the same issues with my vintage Stewart-Warner speedometer. Spent a fair amount of cash on drive cables, drive gears, mounts, etc trying to get it to work right but I'm ready to give up. Says I'm going 15mph while accelerating and 35mph while decelerating and everything in between while just cruising. It'd be funny except for the money spent. Maybe I'll give the suggestion to retrofit a digital in here a whirl.
Great looking ride by the way. I really like the blacked out and chrome look. Very clean.
Great looking ride by the way. I really like the blacked out and chrome look. Very clean.
I suspect that the speedometer is fine (my S-W as well as yours) but the drive mechanism at the hub is a bit sloppy and not very concentric. The bigger problem is likely the cable. They tend to build up tension like a spring along the length no matter how smooth the transition curves are so that they twist and release causing the needle bounce. I've replaced the cable, lubed the sheath, adjusted the routing, etc and still it bounces. Then there's the moving front wheel that is changing speed relative to the rest of the bike. I suspect that's why older motorcycles had much heavier drive cables and gears and had the drive located at he rear wheel.
I think you suspect right. I spray into my cable as much white lithium grease I can get in there. My speedometer works as smooth as butter and I believe this is attributed to the cable able to turn smoothly inside the sheath just as you describe.
Ah so if one could pull the cable out of the sheath and grease the cable up it should improve how well it works...
Well...I would suspect that would be true. All I can really say is that I grease the cable on my cheap speedometer with white lithium grease and it does not bounce around at all. Works smooth. Hope you have the same results and it at least would be worth a try regardless.
Here is a video of me taking a cruise on my bike. You can see in the videoo during a couple spots that I take a look at the speedo and you can see if you catch it that does not bounce around. Pretty accurate as well when checked against my GPS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btt4y-9J6_4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btt4y-9J6_4
Thanks! I actually did build more.. not tensioners though lol.
Inspired by moderator 2Door and his design(thanks 2Door!), I took the day off of work and fixed up my exhaust... used 3/4" EMT and the stock muffler. Not bad for 20 bucks in pipe and a little work. Still need to sand it more and paint it up.
Test fit...
Grinded down welds...
Installed but unpainted:
Side shot:
Performance wise it seems to have a small torque increase and smoothed out the acceleration to WOT.
Inspired by moderator 2Door and his design(thanks 2Door!), I took the day off of work and fixed up my exhaust... used 3/4" EMT and the stock muffler. Not bad for 20 bucks in pipe and a little work. Still need to sand it more and paint it up.
Test fit...
Grinded down welds...
Installed but unpainted:
Side shot:
Performance wise it seems to have a small torque increase and smoothed out the acceleration to WOT.