Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi all,
I have a broken speedo. I have removed the Right angle drive and gave it a test with a drill on slow. Nothing it did not drive the speedo at all.
So I order a new Right angle drive and do the same, the speedo works!
Great.
So I very carefully put the drive back in and connect everything back up, take the car out on the road.....
No speedo.
I have never had to do anything to the five speed box in my car in all the 28 years of ownership.
Before I go to the trouble of pulling the gearbox out, is there anything I could have missed here?
Do I really have to take the box to bits? And look for what exactly?
Any advice or commiserations gratefully received!
Jeff
72+2 5 speed.

Hi,
Pretty sure its a box out to fix. If you remove the drive again, does it still work if you turn the quill?

cheers

Jeff I suspect the square end of the inner cable has dropped out of the speedo end while you fitted the angle drive. Remove cable at speedo and see if cable is turning when you drive it. If it does not turn inner slowly until it locates at angle drive end
Ian

Hi both,
Thanks for the suggestions.
Good point, I will remove from the speedo end and take for a drive.
See what happens!
Regards
Jeff
72+2

I just have taken out the engine and gearbox of my 130/5 because my speedo needle did’t go higher than 70 mph and when i went faster is just fell back to 50 or less.
I had the same problem with my sprint with the lotus 5 speed and it turned out that the speedo drive in the gearbox is just fitted on the rear shaft without a lockpin or something else to keep it there.
You have to tighten the rear nut on the back of the gearbox to lock it.
I managed it on the sprint with the engine-gearbox in situ but on my 130/5 i had to take them out.
Tighten the nut didn’t work so i had to take the gearbox apart and put a shim on the shaft to lock the drive.
Quite a job for a wavering speedo needle.
Good luck

Hi,
Not sure what you mean by.... "You have to tighten the rear nut on the back of the gearbox to lock it".

Do you mean the bolt for the fork holding the bush below in place?

thanks

I know what Hes talking about and its so not that. Take a peek at a parts breakdown there is a large nut on the end of the mainshaft retaining the drive gear and the rear bearing to the mainshaft.

Yes billmack,that’s the one on the rear of the mainshaft .

WoW, If its that nut for sure box out. But would have thought there would have been some additional noise due to endfloat.

Good luck anyway.

cheers

It occurs to me that to test with a drill you need to spin that backwards.

It occurs to me that to test with a drill you need to spin that backwards.