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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Speedo misbehaving

Hi,

The needle on my speedo is very hard to read as it is swaying wildly over a 10mpg range. One second I'm doing 60, the next 70 etc etc.

Is this normal for a midget? It's the first one I drive so I no way of knowing.
In the land where speed camera's grow like grass this is rather annoying.

If this is not normal: where would I start troubleshooting? The cable is brand new and doesn't make any tight turns...

Cheers,

Eddy
Eddy Veuger

Eddy,

Speedo needs to come out, dismantle, clean out old, hardened grease, clean and regrease - should sort it. BTDT.
Send me your email address and I''ll send you a really good doc on how to rebuild Smiths speedos.
Steve Clark

email hotlinked!

Thanks in advance Steve!

Eddy
Eddy Veuger

Hi Eddy. i had this problem and solved it by extracting the inner cable, lightly lubricating and reassembling. Steady as a rock since (and less trouble than rebuilding my speedo!). Chris
Chris H (1970 Midget 1275)

Eddy,

had thsi ages ago and it was the cable. Did as Chris did and check its route so there aren't any really sharp bends as well.

Jeremy
Jeremy 3

Tried to fix this same problem today!
Put in a brand new cable and it's quieter, but still bouncy.

I'll send you my address Steve. Thanks in advance.


Lee
Lee Fox

Both of those can cause it. Likewise can be caused by a kink in the cable housing.
David "never did fix it in my 1995 Escort" Lieb
David Lieb

David,

If the US FWD Escort was anything like the UK FWD Escort then speedo problems could be caused by the diff moving away from where it should be causing the speedo drive gear to lose engagement. A mate had this problem, apparently common, and he fixed his with advice from a local Ford mechanic, fair bit of work though.
David Billington

Not quite the symptom I would have enticipated from "the diff moving away from where it should be"! ;-)
In any case, mine started with about 50,000 miles on the odometer and at any speed over 35mph the needle would jump up and down over a 5 to 10 mph range, never indicating less than the actual speed. I simply drove it by the tacho instead. At 180,000 miles I gave it to my daughter who promptly finished off the original clutch. She put another 70,000 or so on it and then it went to the happy junkyard in the sky.

Odometer seemed to be quite as accuarte as could be expected, so I don't think this was the problem with it. A new cable did nothing for it and I did not feel like shelling out for a new speedo cluster, so I simply put up with it.
David "no more Escorts" Lieb
David Lieb

David,

You may be right, thinking about it a bit more the Escort problem showed as intermittent total loss of speedo functionality rather than fluctuation. IIRC it was something to do with the diff pre-load washer going weak and allowing excessive diff movement.
David Billington

Can't find the doc - but here's a link to the .pdf

http://home.comcast.net/~rhodes/speedo.pdf

with grateful acknowledgement to the author, Anthony Rhodes.
Steve Clark

This thread was discussed between 09/02/2009 and 11/02/2009

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.