OK – so I was tatting around with my van today – fitting a new radio really, but ended up taking out the parcel shelf to gain batter access to a few things, whilst it was out I thought I’d have a go at a minor niggle that been annoying me... my speedo is a bit shabby, and most annoyingly of all - one of the indicator arrow lenses has dropped out inside the speedo, so when indicating you just see white light, and there’s a hole in the face of the speedo where the lens should be…. I’d heard that you have to remove the parcel shelf to get the speedo out – well it certainly makes getting to the two rear screws that hold it in a lot easier!

So here goes a basic speedo ‘clean-up’ refurb with lots of photo’s – I can’t say in any way this a is a mechanical overhaul – more a wash and brush up – but if you’re wanting to colour code your speedo for example, or just repaint a rusty bezel – this is how you do it.. and its actually pretty easy!

First remove your speedo Mine rattled with the loose lens adrift inside somewhere



Here you can see that I have an indicator lens missing, and it’s a bit grubby all round!



First using a small!! Flat headed screwdriver, run around the edge of the bezel – now be careful as the bezel is very thin – I almost seen thicker foil!, running the screwdriver around, just starts to loosen the ‘roll over’ which holds it on…



Once you have loosened it a little, slide your screwdriver along again, but this time rock it back and forth, just to raise the edge a bit more – remember go easy as its thin stuff, and you don’t want to make it too loose, just enough to ‘pop’ it off



Here it is off – easy peasy – now the bezel, glass, and seals are all just pushed into the bezel –



You can see little spots of rust & corrosion just starting on my bezel…



Push inwards on the glass – it may take a bit of force as the seals will be stuck after 50 years – but it will all come out like this…



The glass appears to have a seal stuck around the edge – it certainly didn’t seem to want to come off – so I left it on – this glass lip seal fits right into the ‘bead’ of the front bezel, there is a thick square profile seal around the outside of the glass to centre it, then a thin flat grey seal between the glass and the internal browny/beige inner bezel.



My bezel is just starting to show pin-pricks of corrosion – but you could aerosol paint it now any colour you like – easy so far huh!



Although you can’t really tell in this photo – my ‘clock face’ had gone sort of cloudy, especially the LH side, and I wanted to clean it up a bit..



So undo the big nut on the rear – It’s around 20 or 21mm – I just used an adjustable on it, it wasn’t that tight – but be careful as the innards/clock face part will fall out if you are not paying attention!



Note how the inner mechanism has a hex on it – that’s so you make sure you line up the innards back up with the warning lamp sockets – it’s quite obvious though as your taking it apart..



Here was my problem – the warning lamp lenses had fell off! – only the middle (main beam) remained - these are the 3 oil/beam/ign lamps but also note that the bulbs have ‘burnt’ a clear hole through the plastic lens – there was no hole as such – but they had bleached all the colour from the plastic…



The top indicator arrow lenses are behind\inside this white rubber boot… it just peels off easily enough – note how high it fits – I put it back on too low at first and couldn’t get the boot to line up with the bulb socket on the rear case when re-assembling!



Again my main prob – and the one that drove me mad (these little niggles that play on your OCD tendency – hahahahaha!) – yes the lenses had fallen off – they only seem to be stuck on with varnish or something - and they too had burnt the lens colour out – it should be all green!



Clear arrow hole – should be green!



Rear view with the lenses off…



Now to have a clean & polish of the dial face…



I was a bit unsure what to clean it with to be honest – so I first tried isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud – that certainly got some crap off, and (luckily!) didn’t remove the paint… but the trouble with isopropyl it flashes off real quick and leaves it really streaky..



SO I took to the micro-fibre polishing cloths with a touch of isopropyl on to make it a ‘broader brush’ – certainly still removing dirt!



The isopropyl did clean the dirt off, but the LH side of the face was still ‘cloudy’ with something – so I rummaged around the cleaning cupboard and came out a bottle of Brasso – I can imagine Peter Banks (who refurbs speedo professionally) is having a heart attack pretty much right now – but after a quick application, and a gentle rub with micro-fibre – wow – it glows now! SWEET That’s a stroke of luck – but the the observant will notice a big problem – I broke the needle – UH-OH! After taking so much care to only polish one way (the way the needle sweeps) I was just thinking I must tell them to do the same! when I took my mind off for a split sec and went the wrong way – snap! In fairness though I had heard they are mega fragile, and have seen some broke in three places – luckily only one break for me…



A touch of super-glue off a cocktail stick, and fair play it went right back on – it was a sort of jagged break with a good ‘location’ feel of the two broken parts and good surface area – it is all but impossible to see where it was broken – I was very lucky! I gave the needle a wipe with the isopropyl achohol which seemed to whiten it up a touch, and cleaned off the slight excess of superglue making the break invisible.. hoorah!
(Apparently Peter Banks remakes these needles if the worst happens!)



My outer chrome bezel had picked up a few dings along its journey! So I pushed and fettled them out from behind..





Its thin stuff, so easily worked with a flat tipped screwdriver and a bit of persuasion



I hunted around the house for some new green plastic to make new indicator lenses out of – I searched high and low for some translucent green plastic – I looked at shampoo bottles, felt tip pens, vegetable bags (too thin)etc etc to see if I could either find a gel coat (like a sweet wrapper cellophane) to add to my existing lenses, or make new lenses completely – I ended up making a new lens, as I could’nt find any green cellophane anywhere – and I discovered that the lens that had fallen out actually had a hole through the lens where it had crazed with the heat – I eventually made one from a kids pen top, that I cut up, heated up a bit and flatted in to a little sheet of green plastic then trimmed to fit…
The photo bizzarely doesn’t show it as green – but you can see the very green pen top remnants behind!



Out comes the hot glue gun to fix the lenses back in place – I managed to re-use the bottom three lenses, as although they had a clear spot burnt in them from the years of heat – I found I could just move them a few mm to a new part of the lens and re-glue.. as the actual hole the light shines through is quite small, and the lens diameter quiet big!



Looking better although the light behind is a bit too bright and is washing out the colour for my poor camera phone – they look spot on in real life – well chuffed



Time to put it all back together – I washed the glass and seals in hot soapy water – that glued on seal around the edge of the glass wasn’t quite as glued on by the time I’d finished, but I was still mostly on – Glass goes in, with the seal fitting into bezel slot – then the thick square seal pushes in flush all around to centre the glass within the chrome bezel ..



Then the painted metal bezel goes back in – this had the brasso treatment too – made it better, but it’s still got a few marks on from corrosion, but I want it stock, not painted, until I can match the OG bezel colour I’ll leave it as it should be…



Put the innards back in the case – making sure the lights line up with bulb holders, using the hex fitting, and tighten up the big nut finger tight, then pop the chrome bezel and glass assy back onto the case – making sure you have NO fingermarks or dust inside the glass or dial face – as they would annoy you for ever! (that OCD again!)…
Lightly go around and crimp the chrome bezel lip aroung the case to re-fix – its best to push down on the case whilst you do this to get it tight… then finally tighten your big nut.



And there you go – job done – looks much cleaner and sparkly in the flesh, and no missing indicator light lens – hoorah! Just refit to bus to finish.



All in I reckon it took two hours to refurb, that includes making a new indicator lens and fixing my self inflicted broken needle!
You could go the whole hog – remove the needle (They just push on- pull up hard on the black center - but I tried mine and it was v tight, so I left well alone) – if you then remove the two flat headed screws on the inner face - the dial and center beige bezel will come free from the workings for painting etc – it depends how far you want to go….

Hope this was useful

Thanks Ted that's really useful. I've got a speedo with the same issue that I need to tackle in the near future so your thread is really helpful.

I heard that you can use the plastic bottle tops from skimmed, semi skimmed and full fat milk for the plastic light colours. (Red, green, blue)

Same here, my clock is stuck on 77k something and i want to strip it and give it a clean so this thread is very helpful in knowing how it all comes apart. Top marks for sharing

Great thread.....thanks for bothering

Really informative. Had mine done by Pete, and its a very good job. I would have had a go myself if I'd seen this beforehand, or had the balls to attempt it!

Awesome Job Ted

Can anyone comment how easy it is to turn the mileage back to zero whilst at the "apart" stage?

Well Ted, I finally got around to taking apart and giving the Speedo a resto and your post was invaluable, a step by step guide
As regards setting mileage, I'm sure there's a better way but I undid the flat head screw on the right side and moved the workings up and connected my cordless drill to the clock, I did about 1000 miles a minute!
The different plastic bottle tops worked a treat for the coloured plastic warning lights, I can't remember who suggested that but a top tip