Well, I finally got under there and changed out the speedometer cable today.
I bought this car for my wife in January almost 2 years ago, and the PO told me it had broken one cold, frigid morning when his wife took off for work. I bought the new cable over a year ago. I'm ashamed to say that I have put it off for this long. Everytime I'd get under the car to do something else, I'd look around and all I could see was a tube going up somewhere that I didn't want to get. Plus, I was afraid that I would, once again, do a bunch of work just to find out it was something else, like the speedo or odo gears. Well. After reading a few of the posts on this problem over the last few days, and having everyone tell how it
wasn't a pain in the ass to get the dash out, (I was absolutely shocked when I barely touched the inst. panel and it just popped out
), and also how the bushing removal was as simple as loosening up a bolt, I went ahead and went for it. Geez, I could kick myself in the butt for procrastinating on this job!!! I got the warm fuzzies when I pulled out and headed down the street and the needle started rising.
And after a little while, I saw the odometer turning, and the trip meter changing. Ahhh... Anyway, thanks for the positive (and informative) posts and comments to all who have written about the subject. I'm putting a couple of pics down to show the broken tranny end of the cable, and the bushing in the tranny, which is kind of grainy, since I was way too close. I'd like to know, since the rubber grommet in the tranny looked deformed, where can I find a new rubber to replace the old one. One thing I noticed when I dropped the tube covering the back end of the cable is that it was full of water. This seems like a bad thing to happen in freezing weather. Is there a way to keep the water out of that cover hose?? Does anybody know how many miles these cables ordinarily last? There was 203,332 miles on the car when we bought it. I imagine we've put 5k or less. Anyway, is a dealer the only one that would have a rubber grommet like that? Whatever the case, I am a happy, smiley dude this Thanksgiving weekend. (And for the record, I did thank Him first.)
