speedo gear drive

[Redman]

Hey, that speedo gear drive, I should not be able to spin that little tab should I?
(I am refering to that little tab on the output of the geardrive, what you can see with the gear drive still on the wheel/axle with the cable disconnected.)

I can spin that tab real easy so I quess the gear drive has failed, and that is why my speedo just quit. I Have bid on a replacement. But just thought I would ask in the mean time.

Troubleshooting was thus:
Took cable off the back of the speedo, went down the road, the calbe was spinning but if I held it lightly it would stop.
Then I disconnected at the wheel and pulled cable out from the sheeth, and it was all okay. Could not spin the cable loose from the drive end part either.
SO then I looked at the drive gear box and found that I could spinn that tab real easy with a pair of needle noze plyers.

Other clue was that the speedo just quit in an instant. My experince with cables going bad is that it is intermittent and also jumps around alot before it quits entirley.

.

[TheCafeKid]

Hey, that speedo gear drive, I should not be able to spin that little tab should I?
(I am refering to that little tab on the output of the geardrive, what you can see with the gear drive still on the wheel/axle with the cable disconnected.)

I can spin that tab real easy so I quess the gear drive has failed, and that is why my speedo just quit. I Have bid on a replacement. But just thought I would ask in the mean time.

Troubleshooting was thus:
Took cable off the back of the speedo, went down the road, the calbe was spinning but if I held it lightly it would stop.
Then I disconnected at the wheel and pulled cable out from the sheeth, and it was all okay. Could not spin the cable loose from the drive end part either.
SO then I looked at the drive gear box and found that I could spinn that tab real easy with a pair of needle noze plyers.

Other clue was that the speedo just quit in an instant. My experince with cables going bad is that it is intermittent and also jumps around alot before it quits entirley.

.

Doesnt sound like the drive to me, sounds like the cable. I have a couple times found that if something is sticking, or your cable is just worn out, or whatever, that little slotted end that the tab fits into will just spin the cable right out of it. Might pull the cable out of the sheath, and check that idear out. And I do beleive I have a couple three speedo drives laying about.. if you dont win your bid..

[SqDancerLynn1]

The speedo gearbox is probably bad, non repairable part

[Nessism]

The speedo gearbox is probably bad, non repairable part

I tried to take one apart recently and couldn't figure out how to get it open. Non repairable sounds right.

[Redman]

Doesnt sound like the drive to me, sounds like the cable. ..
..
..

I, too, suspected the cable but, like I said, I took the cable out of the sheath and it seemed okay. I even tried to spin the fitting off the cable, nope. It was solid.

[Redman]

The rest of the story.

Took off the speedo gear drive.

First thing I noticed is that the disc with the two tabs (that fit against the two slots in the front wheel) was not centered and I could move it from side to side. And I could spin it around (like the wheel would do) and the output tab (that drives cable) would not always spin.


I managed to take off that cir-clip, and the big washer.
Then could see that the disc with the tabs had come apart from the rest of the unit.
I could push it back together. THe disc has two tabs on its internal diameter that are suppose to fit into some slots in the center bushing.



BUt seems like there is nothing to keep it there, other than that washer and the circlip. Maybe that washer has worn so is thiner than it used to be or something. That disc can easlily just pop out of position again.

So I installed the ebay gear drive that I got today. All good now.

Seems that at any point in time there are many to choose from on Ebay. Seems that they are all the same, judging only by appearance, but I choose one from similar size bike just in case maybe there are different axle sizes between, say, an 450 and an 1100.

>>Later Note:
From this expereince, I would then say this: If your speedo quits and the cable seems okay. Then Inspect this gear drive. Dont need to bother to remove that cir-clip, but if that disc with the two tabs can be moved around from side to side, then you know it has come loose from the rest of the internals. Pitch it and get another. Or maybe you can work that disc back into place, and it might work again for a while.
The actaull gears of the gear drive seemed okay. They are further into the unit, I did not see how to further dissasemble it.

.

[Calvin Blackmore]

nice breakdown
i tried to pull one apart once and got scared of losing an eye

the unit looks jus tlike the one on my bike si I assume the Suzuki mantra of parts bin engineering is at play

Im shocked they wear out though
must be a total lack of maintenance

[Smokinapankake]

I just recently went though a similar problem - my speedo drive on my 84 Katana was squealing like a stuck pig so I just got a new one. Within about 2 weeks it began squealing too. Not wanting to buy yet another one, I dug into it.

Redman makes mention of a center bushing. This part pulled right out of the unit using some channel lock pliers. I then squirted in some high temp wheel bearing grease with a large mouthed syringe, reassembled, and all was well. Have been riding it that way for a month or so now with no more squeal.
Hope this helps....

[1948man]

This info is from a cavalcade site. Maybe they're the same.

http://www.billydump.com/cav/instruct/speedo_1.htm

for some reason, at the end of the tutorial there is some text from a fork brace installation.

[Smokinapankake]

Thats pretty much how I did it, only I was able to pull out the worm gear that drives the speedo cable as well, and greased the he!! out of it, too.

Good write-up; thanks for posting that!

[Redman]

This info is from a cavalcade site. Maybe they're the same.

http://www.billydump.com/cav/instruct/speedo_1.htm

for some reason, at the end of the tutorial there is some text from a fork brace installation.

Thanks.

The unit in the Cav tutorial (The cav site must have thier own BassCliff BikeCliff and bwringer) looks the same as our GS unit with the following exception:
- Cav unit has a smaller wire spring clip instead of a thicher heavier cir-clip.
- the output of the drive unit has male treads, were as our drive unit had female treads.
But seems like the basic design is the same. And the method shown for removing the actaull gears seems to be the same as Smokinapankake says he did on his GS unit.

.

[waterman]

Nice write up on the speedo drives. I have disassembled one in the past to see why it had quit, like you discovered the thin metal washer tabs were worn.

I just want to point out that while each of the drives discussed here do work in a similar fashion and they look the same, they are in fact different and will not universally work from one model to next.

I have found in general that Suzuki used two models in their GS line. Without going into specific detail on differences, just use caution when purchasing used ones since they are model specific. In very general terms, the G and E Models use one style while the L and GL use a different style. Best advice to others is check your speedo part number and then cross reference to be sure part you are buying will work. DAMHIK