Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

My speedo is no longer working. I unhooked the cable from the angle drive with the intent to spin it (counter clockwise??). The cable seemed to be too short to get engaged to the female part of the drive. It only sticks out about 1/4 to 3/8 inch. I have an old piece of stock that seemed to need 1/2 in. to mate up. Before I try to remove the drive I would like to know if this is possible. Also why not just loosen/remove the knurled brrass piece and not the whole unit? Am I missing something?
Thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,
The angle drive is removed by undoing the knurled nut, you do not need to remove the driven gear bearing/housing from the gearbox itself. The most likely reason for the speedo not working is failure of the short length of cable between the driven gear in the gearbox and the angle drive unit, not the speedo cable itself. If that is the problem you can replace it with a suitably sized piece of solid steel rod, filed square to fit.

Regards,

...commonly referred to as the speedo drive quill and available from Caterham cars for ?1 last time I bought on.

jono wrote:...commonly referred to as the speedo drive quill and available from Caterham cars for ?1 last time I bought on.

Didn't realise it was so readily available and so cheap.......not really worth the effort of making something up then, except that a solid rod will probably never fail again!

Regards,

When I had a speedometer failure, I chased my tail for awhile before I discovered the "quill" was stripped in the angle drive. Was not readily noticeable until I turned the quill while holding the speedometer cable and felt the disengagement. A local speedo shop fixed it for a reasonable cost. All is well now.

Rob Walker
26-4889