Opening, Servicing, and Closing a Honda speedometer

Here is an article I have pulled from another website. I have used it to take apart speedometers and tachometers but prefer the simple method of cutting the band.

Start by prying open the retaining ring with a utility knife, from the bottom side. Pry the ring up just enough to fit in a small common screwdriver.

Be careful with the utility knife..they're very sharp.

Pry the retaining ring upward as you work your way around, opening only about a 1/16th inch gap. Don't twist the screwdriver, it'll just make a mess of the ring. Only push the handle downward, prying upward a very small section (1/4 to 3/8s inch at a time) of the ring. It does take a while to get all the way around, so be patient.

Remove the screws in the back.

Push the screwdriver in under the retaining ring, past the lip located underneath and pull out as shown. Work your way around, in order to remove the back. You'll notice I'm pushing on the cable shaft to remove the back.

Lay the face on a table and use pliers or open end wrench to hold the nut locking the trip reset shaft and turn clockwise to unscrew.

It's reverse thread !!

Remove the screws holding the bell housing and pull it out. Then the two others (opposite) holding the drive housing. Note: you now have full access to the indicator shaft spring for possible adjustment. I tried this with less than good results, so I don't recommend it.

The next six photos show lubrication points. Use lithium grease (White Lube). Don't use an excessive amount. Just a little, contaminating the magnets under the bell housing will result in erratic movement of the speed indicator.

Warning: Do not get grease on the magnets circled in red; the lubrication points are circled in blue !!

Now reattach the bottom "cable shaft" and "bell" housings shown.

Place the speedo face and trip shaft back in and re-tighten counterclockwise (remember the reverse thread). Put the tow screws in the back a few turns, but don't tighten. Then slip about an inch and a half of the back's lip edge (at the trip-set shaft) into the retaining ring and use the utility knife to work it into the retaining ring all the way around. Fully tighten the screws in the back and gently center the trip shaft in its whole by rotating the back.

In order to close or re-crimp the retaining ring, you can use thin leather or sturdy clothe in between the pliers, but don't just squeeze the pliers. Apply the pressure from the top teeth by pushing the bottom teeth inward toward the speedo and lifting the pliers' handles upward as indicated by the arrows (right).

Consider lubing the cable and put that sucker back on the bike !!

From http://www.salocal.c...eedo/spedo5.htm

Removing and reinstalling the faceplate.

Info by LRCXed Larry

More pictures can be found in how to reset a speedometer to Zero. Includes an alternative way to remove the band and close up the gauge.

https://sites.google.com/site/cx500gl500/resetting-a-speedometer-to-00000

Now you need to remove the screws that hold the face plate on. Be careful not to slip. The face is plastic and you don't want to break it.

Now comes the tricky part. Getting the needle off. They are pressed on pretty tightly usually. If you try to pry it off between the plastic face and the needle you take a chance of marking things up or breaking the needle. What I do is to put a screwdriver UNDER the plastic face plate just under the needle and twist it to pop off the needle. Be careful where you place the screwdriver though. You don't want to pry against any plastic parts like the rollers with the #'s on them.

If you're doing this to replace the faceplate or add a faceplate overlay do that now and screw it back on with the two screws that were removed earlier. When finished move on to the next step.

With the unit and face plate screwed back in the next step is to set the needle in place. I use a drill with a section of cable that I use to drive the speedometer or tach before I take them apart. The speed is just under 35mph usually. So I set the needle on the stem very lightly and run it up to see what it's sitting at at that time. If it needs to be adjusted I can move the needle down or up depending on the need. This one needed to go down. So I put the needle on the underside of the peg and pressed it lightly so I could move it to the other side and test it. When it's at the correct setting I just simply press down harder so it will stay permanent.

Blindstitch trick that was given by I believe Bluefox.

Here's a simple way to test to see how accurate your speedometer is.

The simple way is to time how long it takes the odometer to show exactly 1 mile. Take that number in seconds and divide it into 3600. That will give you the MPH that the needle should show. i.e. Let's say it takes 108 seconds for the odometer to turn 1 mile. Divide 3600 by 108 and the MPH that the dial should have shown would be 33.33 MPH.

I also test my speedometers at 2 miles, 3 miles and 5miles.